Last weekend, I took a quick trip to New Hampshire and hung out at the quiet Pine River Pond, which is actually a lake.
Food always tastes better when its cooked out in a little nature cabin, am I right?
There was homemade lobster for dinner (my first time!), which my friends brought down from Stonington, Maine. The lobster experience was very memorable. Smelly, delicious, and laughable. With lots of lemon butter to go around. Continue reading
A few notes and noshes from my short stay in Madrid, Spain. We arrived on Christmas day and spent the night with a sweet family that cooked a special, traditional Christmas meal for us. Some of the food was unfamiliar, but we tasted new things and were grateful for the warm welcome into the city. I did not take any pictures that night, but below are some snapshots of the rest of the trip.
A requirement: churros con chocolate (pictured in the middle) + cafe con leche for breakfast
We visited the Reina Sofia and the Prado art museums. This was a pretty installation at the Reina Sofia.
Exploring the parks was another favorite activity. The park near Casa de Campo had a section with some colorful birds. Random yet pretty.
El Mercado de San Antón was a big food highlight. The downstairs section of the market is for picking up gourmet groceries and snacks, and the upstairs section is full of tapas-style fancy food vendors.
We ordered a Continue reading
I’m back in New York after visiting California for 10 days, five in the Bay Area with friends and five in Los Angeles with family. All of the summer produce was in full swing: stone fruit, cherries, berries, summer squashes, tomatoes…
New York greenmarkets literally just started selling strawberries, and rhubarb and asparagus are still hanging on, even into the month of June (this is rare according to my greenmarket vendor).
While I had a giant list of restaurants to eat at, I found myself cooking and baking quite often during my California visit.
I made a plum galette using this recipe as a guide (I didn’t use almonds to keep things simple). I made Smitten Kitchen’s brown butter salted rice crispy treats. I made the Silver Palate’s zucchini bread. I made lots of smoothies. I made poached eggs and veggie egg scrambles. Simple things, but so nourishing.
I found myself making this throw-together pasta twice, once in the Bay Area and once in Los Angeles. The trick: save about 1/2-3/4 cup of the water that you use to cook the pasta in. Adding back the hot starchy water keeps the veggie-filled pasta creamy and coated.
I made this pasta the first time in Berkeley, with my friends Sara and Nir. We used a mix of chard and kale, onion, ribboned asparagus, basil, and lemon zest. Pasta water, Parmesan, a splash of red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper were added as finishing touches. A great vegetarian meal. To go with the pasta, Sara made us a colorful salad with lemon dressing, and Nir made his cheesy garlic olive oiled bread.
Sara, Nir, and I loved the pasta so much, so I made it again for my parents on my last night in L.A. My mom grilled some sausages and we added them into the pasta at the end. I used zucchini ribbons instead of asparagus. No basil, but some rosemary on the side. And lemon zest and juice this time instead of a splash of vinegar.
Remember: save your cooking water. It makes all the difference.
New York, I’m waiting very patiently for the rest of the summer produce to arrive. Until then, I’m eating as much rhubarb, strawberry, young greens, and asparagus as I can.
makes about 3-4 servings
1/2 pound pasta (if you can find it, use mini penne)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium zucchini or 1/2 bunch of asparagus
1/2 onion, red or white
1-2 cloves garlic
1 small bunch kale or chard
zest and juice from 1 small lemon
Salt and pepper, to taste
Parmesan cheese, to taste
Grilled sausage (I used a chicken cilantro sausage), optional
Using a vegetable peeler and holding one end of the vegetable, shave the zucchini (or asparagus) into long ribbons. Chop the onion, mince the garlic, and chop the kale and/or chard (you can use the chard stems but not the kale stems).
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add a hefty amount of salt and the pasta. Cook according to the package directions or until al dente. In the last minute of cooking, drop the zucchini or asparagus ribbons into the boiling water. When the pasta is cooked, drain the pasta/vegetable ribbon mixture. *SAVE 1/2-3/4 cup of the water and set aside.*
Heat the grill and grill some sausages. Once grilled, cut them up into bite-size pieces. (alternatively, you could cut the sausages up and saute them in the skillet with the kale, or omit altogether to keep things vegetarian).
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another minute. Add the kale and cook until just wilted. Turn off the heat.
Mix the cooked pasta/ribbons in with the sauteed onions and greens mixture. Pour in the reserved pasta water and toss. Toss in the lemon zest and juice. Mix in the grilled sausages. Add salt and pepper and Parmesan to taste.
You’ll want seconds. Trust me.
It’s 5:30 PM. You are in Buenos Aires in the dead of winter. You need food, but mostly you need warmth. You stop into the nearest cafe and order some coffee and medialunas (little croissants) to warm you up and hold you off until your dinner at 10:30 PM.
NOTE: Usually I drink my coffee black. I like it strong. However, most times in Buenos Aires I needed to douse (yes, douse) my coffee with sugar/milk. This was just my opinion (and the opinion of my traveling companions), but the coffee in Buenos Aires was not our fav. We would probably recommend ordering a cafe con leche most of the time.
Or, you could always just drink mate, a traditional South American drink made from the dried leaves of yerba mate in hot water. My travel buddies and I even went to the Mate Museum in a small (abandoned, at least in the winter) yet beautiful river town called Tigre. The museum was more like an older man’s home displaying his collection of mate paraphernalia, but we paid our dues and went with it.
On other nights, we would go out for dinner. We tried the northwestern Argentine food like empanadas, a pastry filled with meat, cheese, beans, and/or vegetables, locro, a hominy-based stew with meats, sausages, and vegetables, and humitas, sort of like a tamale but more mushy and a tad sweeter.
Humita (from the restaurant in Palermo called “Las Choles”
One of my favorite things about Buenos Aires was all of the live music. We frequented this one bar called Thelonious Bar. Live jazz almost every night. The bar had a warehouse feel to it with nice twinkle lights behind the band. I especially enjoyed how people both young and old came to hear the music and just hang out at the bar with a drink or a coffee.
El Enjambre
And one night we met some really well-dressed Argentines who are also in a band (called “The Shortcuts“) at a pizza place called Kentucky.
…and most times we would end up with a meal like this:
Lomo con champignons y papas noisette
Heavy, creamy, fried. Good for a few bites, but it was just a little too much for me. Oh yes, and I must not forget the condiment of the trip: salsa golf. What the heck is salsa golf? Well, wikipedia has led me to believe that it is basically just mayo with a tomato based sauce similar to ketchup and possibly some other spices like paprika or turmeric. We mostly just played around with our golf sauce, but Matt from the blog MattBites really seemed to like salsa golf: check it.
Actually, I have to say that my favorite lunch breaks were when we bought street food from a choripán cart. Choripán is basically grilled chorizo on a crusty roll with chimichurri sauce (garlic-based) or mustard.
On the final night of our stay in Buenos Aires, we decided to go all fancy pants and eat at Thymus, a French-inspired restaurant. Our meal was fantastic and it was extremely cheap compared to what we would have paid for a meal like this in the US. I really love it when restaurants give you bread and butter, with mounds of salt and pepper for dipping, too.
2 weeks in Buenos Aires was a lot of eating and I have only covered some of our many adventures in this post. I will say, though, that if you find yourself in Buenos Aires, you MUST go to Tierra Santa, the religious theme park that screams kitschy but is incredibly fun and full of animatronic shows of the birth of Jesus, the creation, the last supper, and Jesus’s resurrection. And you can pose behind cutouts of historical characters:
Traveling in Buenos Aires and Argentina in general during their winter can be pretty rough. Yes, you beat the crowds, but come prepared with warm clothes, especially in case you get stranded in the rain waiting for a taxi.
Ok, chau chicos! And don’t forget to eat dulce de leche until you can’t even look at it anymore!
I was in Germany for a little over 24 hours. Probably not the typical Germany that you think of when you imagine the big cities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich…I was in St. Goar and the Rhine Valley River areas. Home of the largest hanging (free-standing) cuckoo clock.
The Rhine Valley River town is very tiny and quaint, with a street that is filled with restaurants, beer stein shops, the cuckoo clock shop, and the Birkenstock store.
In front of the beer stein shopTaking a mini cruise along the river showcases the beautiful castles in the hills of Germany. It is really amazing to see all of the castles built right into the mountains:
So, what is German cuisine like?
Dense Dark Whole Grain Breads
Streusels and Strudels and Pretzel Bread
This little custard fruit tart business
Figsinmybelly 
