Trip of a lifetime: one year later

Fast-forward update:  bowed out of the glorious retired lifestyle of golf, garden, and sun in Ohio; sweated out the hottest summer on record in Austin, TX; bumbled across the west through canyons, over mountains, along rivers and and straight into the desert with 10 wigs. Crossing further west, I hit LA and smacked into the California Coast. As soon as I was back on fertile San Francisco soil, I linked up with a startup techie crew obsessed with food, and I haven’t looked back. Now every day I work with artisan food producers, helping them get exposure to more markets across the country. Mustards, balsamics, spiced popcorn, chocolate chocolate chocolate, olive oils, hot sauces, toasted coconut chips, coconut jam, caramels, cheese, teas, chai, direct trade coffee, the list goes on and on. We’re building software tools that enable food companies to reach more people. From independent specialty markets nationwide to regional groceries to national chains, really any store or restaurant searching for unique, tasty, beautiful products that otherwise they would never find. Typical day at work, coffee presentation and tasting: Lucked into a swank apartment with an old friend, complete with 6-burner restaurant grade stove and outdoor deck turned garden. Patterns emerge: grow food, shop farmers markets, create new recipes, eat with friends. Looks like I’m home again.

Home sweet home: Latin love in the Midwest

Chicago was my first point of entry back into the United States, and after 5 months straight of traveling south-of-the-border, it couldn’t have been a more fluid transition from Latin culture. An unconfirmed five-minute internet search says that there are almost 3 million people in Chicago (2011 census), with nearly 1 million Hispanic population. What I found walking around the tiny spec of Chicagoland I could cover on foot and bicycle were dozens of taquerías, lavanderías, mercados,  peluquerías, paleterías, whole streets with signs only in Spanish and even a gourmet Oaxacan-inspired restaurant (see: my take on Oaxacan food here and here) from master chef and good food advocate Rick Bayless.

Famed for fancy Mexican restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, as well as the founder of Green City Farmers’ Market, Bayless formatted XOCO into a casual lunch spot where Americans can be educated on where their mouthwatering, wood-fired torta comes from. One of the major differences between Chicago and Oaxaca, Mexico, is that people there already know that their tomatoes come from the hills just outside of town, tortillas are made around the corner, mangos come from the coast, and avocados are scare and pricey because nearly all of them are exported by U.S. companies (Dole, Chiquita, etc).

Even though education, demand, supply and price of real food in the U.S. are all out of whack, I still thoroughly enjoyed my $20, fresh, sustainable, Oaxacan-inspired lunch at XOCO:

I spent the equivalent of one month in Guatemala on just one weekend in Chicago, so it was back to my homeland Ohio, where I had the true pleasure of enjoying my parents’ back yard garden (and some family QT). A couple years ago, they ripped out most of their lawn space, replacing grass with raised beds surrounding by stone pathways. Now it’s full of culinary fare – every herb you can name in 10 seconds or less plus some exotic varieties like chocolate mint and coriander, squashes, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, grapes, eggplant, and raspberries with delightful flowers (natural pesticides) coloring the green landscape.

I made it just in time for the tail end of strawberry season, caught the very beginning of sweet corn season, but left unfortunately while the tomatoes were still green on the vines. Love to my most dedicated readers, la familia! Miss you guys and our backyard feasts.

Currently in Austin, TX, where tomato season is most definitely in full force. I hit the farmers’ market on Saturday and loaded up with melon, chard, baby eggplants, heirloom tomatoes and tamales! Teaching a class next week on how to make salsa with my friend’s brand new project that’s gonna be big: HourSchool.com. Watch the video, spread the word!

Hourschool from HourSchool on Vimeo.

100 New Foods Project: Wrap-up

On February 20, I started my 100 New Foods in 100 Days project, and at that time I thought it would be easy because I was traveling in a foreign country. Well, I spent 166 days traveling in Mexico and Guatemala, and only recorded 52 new foods on this blog. Does that mean I didn’t eat much? Hell no! It’s just that the original plan was not so easy to follow:

(1)  vegetarian options are limited in Central America, so I ate the same things over and over (see: rica quesadilla)
(2)  i’m a bit camera shy. maybe i didn’t want people to know i had a $150 camera on me. maybe i didn’t want to draw more attention to the blonde white girl traveling alone. maybe i didn’t want to play the part of a trigger-happy tourist. for whatever reason, some new foods just went undocumented.
(3)  an easy option would have been to try the hundreds of different dulces (desserts) available, but gaining weight was not one of my objectives
(4)  food costs money, and this backpacker was on a tight budget. so i often just had eggs or leftovers or mangos and called it a meal.
(5)  i made huevos rancheros probably 20 times, and while there are slight variations depending on what ingredients i had, that becomes a boring blog.

So without any further lame excuses, here is the final installment of my New Foods Project:

New Food #42: Tostados con frijolitos y queso duro. Fried tortilla with refried beans and cheese crumbles, topped with hot salsa. Like a super nacho. New Food #43. Enchiladas. If the picture above is a super nacho, then this is a super grande muy especial nacho. This is a very typical Guatemalan food, with one twist: carne de soya rather than pork or chicken or beef. All the other toppings are traditional: a lettuce leaf, a mixture of pickled cabbage, onions and carrots, soy meat, raw sweet onions, cilantro, hard-boiled egg and cheese crumbles. New Food #44. Sopa de pepino. Cucumber soup. And it’s not a cold cucumber soup, which is the only kind I’d ever heard of. The cucumbers took on the flavors of the soup itself and resembled more of a mild pickle in the end. All the other veggies make this a power-packed delight. And, yep, that’s a Christmas plate and a pretty wild tablecloth print. I love how casual everything is in Latin America, where the devil is not in the details, but he could be your dinner date. New Food #45. Tacos Fritos con queso. Fried tacos with cheese. Road snack at the border between Guatemala and Mexico. I love the little baggie of salsa and shredded cabbage. New Food #46. Enchiladas de huevos con salsa coloradita. Egg enchiladas with red salsa. Sort of a variation of huevos rancheros only instead of a sunny-side up egg on top of a fried tortilla, they’re scrambled and tucked into a folded fried tortilla. Both call for salsa poured over everything, and that gets me every time. Yum. New Food #47. Sopa de calabacitas y elotes. Soup with little squashes and corn. The corn really makes this soup. Cook the corn in salted water with fresh herbs, then use this water for the soup stock. Pureed tomatoes make it a red broth. New Food #48. Empanadas. Made these with extra flour tortilla dough (which was part corn flour) and stuffed them with queso fundido or string cheese. Then they were topped with a mixture of finely chopped carrots, onions, tomatoes and cilantro. New Food #49. Tamarindo dulce. A little spoonful of tamarind taffy for a peso. New Food #50. Tlayuda de Oaxaca. Could be translated as a giant quesadilla, typical of Oaxaca. You’d see flat-top grills the size of tympani drums in restaurant fronts, fired with charcoal and made to order. Mine was filled with refried black beans and Oaxacan string cheese. Accompanied by 3 salsitas and pickled onions. New Food #51. Huaraches. Named for its shape like a sandal, my roommate/chef built his own huarache mold and used to sell them at the San Cristobal market. They’re sort of like Mexican pizzas, topped with refried black beans, tomato sauce, two types of cheese, fresh cream, cilantro, and onions. New Food #52. Chiles rellenos con salsa frances. Stuffed peppers with a walnut béchamel sauce. A fancy variation on standard chiles rellenos with red tomato sauce, this dish is often served at weddings in Mexico.

Even though gaining weight was not one of my objectives, I have put on a little refried queso gut. It actually drives Latin guys wild, but I’m not so sure about American guys, so now I’ve started a One Salad a Day Project. I’ve got fresh lettuce and herbs growing in the garden, so this is one tasty diet!

Mayan Market to Table

Mayan markets in Mexico and Guatemala are a lot alike, not surprising as the countries share a border that has shifted throughout history and both have climates that range from mountain temperate to jungle tropical where they can grow just about anything. Thousands of years of Mayan cultivation still hold strong, with corn, beans and potatoes blanketing the largest part of the landscape that peaks and valleys in volcanic highs and wet river lows.

Under the colorful tarp canopies of the Mayan markets, there is a seemingly endless maze of ramshack stalls, operated almost exclusively by women, dressed in traditional long printed skirts and complementing printed blouses cinched at the waist with bright woven belts that match the ribbons braided into their long hair. The mothers, daughters, grandmothers chatter with each other in Mayan and snap, rip, pop beans from their shells piled high in great heaping sacks. They slip, flip, tie plastic bags around sold produce with a kind of bored second nature that must come from working the market day after day, through hard rains that pound the bright patchwork of plastic tarps overhead, through intense heat that gets trapped under the colorful canopy, thick with the aroma of ripened bananas and mangos.

On display are long green onions bundled together with a grass tie, tomatoes plump red from the heat and piled in pyramids of $10 or $20 pesos, soil covered potatoes stacked in the same careful configurations, cilantro picked that day with white dirt caked roots in tact, fresh and dried chile peppers in practically every shade of red and green, garlic braided in the same way the Mayan women braid their hair, bright yellow mangos with their sticky sweet aroma, mountains of avocados with one or two cut in half to show quality, plantains so small like the size of your thumb and so big like the size of your forearm.

There’s one thing I haven’t been able to find at the markets in Mexico that were sold in every other stall in Guatemala. Güicoy or pumpkin squash. Market vendors carried small pumpkins the size of your fist all the way up to big ones the size of your head, with tough skins in sunspotted greens and yellows. It was in the cramped kitchen of a Guatemalan family where I first tasted güicoy and learned to make this simple, creamy, comforting, delicious soup.

New Food #41. Sopa de güicoy. Pumpkin squash soup. Ciudad Vieja, Guatemala.

 

Taking it to the next level

Back in San Cristobal de las Casas after a stint in Oaxaca, and I’m back in the kitchen, using new ingredients I’ve found along the way, and learning even more cooking techniques from my roommate/chef.

Day 36. Enchiladas con mole colaradito. Enchiladas with dark red mole sauce. Oaxaca is famous for their mole, a sauce made with chiles and chocolate. I brought back some mole in powder form to do my own experimenting. Pretty tasty! Although I prefer spicy sauces to sweet ones…

Day 37. Salsa al Diablo. Super hot salsa. I used four different kinds of hot peppers to create a salsa that turned out to be super spicy. I use it sparingly, and have also mixed it with tomatoes and onions to tone done the spice. Day 38. Croquettas al platano. Plantain croquettas. I mashed up some sweet plantains with onions and potatoes, breaded and fried them to make this yummy treat. Day 39. Tamales. Every Saturday chefs all over San Cristobal shine a red light outside their houses, which is commonly known as se vende tamales, or we sell tamales. Only on Saturdays. Only red lights. But the type of tamale varies – after lots of hunting I was able to find 2 vegetarian kinds. One with black beans, and one with herbs and cheese. 

Day 40. Enchiladas de juevos. Egg Enchiladas. The best part about this dish is how easy it is. Tortillas fresh from the tortilleria across the street, the salsa and egg filling thrown together by what was on hand. Complemented with some refried black beans. 

Next up: Guatemala!!