3rd House Journal

Comida Mexicana en Casa

[Avocado mousse; 4/2/2013]

When I first went in 2005, Maddy told me that I'd never starve on our trip to Mexico. She was more than right. With fresh fruits and vegetables everywhere, and some of the most delicious food anywhere, Mexico is foodie heaven. On this latest trip, to San Miguel de Allende last month, I missed having fresh (rinded) fruit dusted with chili, salt and lime from the street vendors, but this was more than made up for by our cook/maid, Tina. Tina has been with R, the daughter of my friend/host T, for many years - no doubt in large part for her culinary talents as much as for her sweet disposition. For our friend M's birthday, Tina made her very special dessert, avocado mousse, which was to die for. (I didn't get the exact proportions, but I believe it's made of avocados, vanilla ice cream, powdered sugar, and a bit of lime. She also made candied Marcona almonds for the top.)

[Salad with salmon, avocado, and pear slices]

Tina also prepared wonderful mid-day meals for us, including salmon and avocado salads, cilantro soup, and fresh guacamole. She cooked up enchiladas verdes and curried chicken with delicately spiced rice.

[Enchiladas verdes]

[Curried chicken]

I'm afraid I don't have a photo of the chiles rellenos she made for us, which may have been my favorite of all. She left them for us while we were off for the day to the hot springs park, and we had a couple of friends of T's come to joins us just after we got home. So the five perfect chiles rellenos plus rice fed us all with little muss or fuss. The poblano chiles were filled with ground beef, chopped almonds and raisins, and they were baked in a tomato sauce. I found a somewhat similar looking recipe online that I must try when I have some time.

Tina also left us cut strawberries and fresh mangos for us to have with yogurt for breakfast before she arrived each day. We had fresh roasted organic coffee from Chiapas, too, from a little coffee shop in the center called La Ventana - for its window from which people often buy their coffee to go to sit and sip in the nearby plaza, the Jardin.

What I've posted here is just what we had at home, en casa, never mind the food we had when we went out to restaurants. I'll save that for another post!

Scenes from the Weekend

[Witch hazel, South End, Boston; 3/3/13]

The snow from the blizzard last month is mostly gone. Two feet of snow takes awhile to melt, and we had some added inches and cold weather throughout February keeping it in place. Now there are only dirty, lumpy remains of former snow banks and patches where the sun's warm rays can't quite reach, like an itch in the mid upper back. Soon there will be shoots of crocuses and daffodils everywhere, but for now it's witch hazel heralding the coming of spring. Next weekend, we'll set the clocks ahead and our days will begin to stretch their creaky muscles.

[Birds line up outside Back Bay Station; 3/3/13]

[Crow atop the chimney pots]

On Saturday, I went to a "Tea" that my alumnae club hosted at L'Espalier, one of Boston's fanciest restaurants. The event had been postponed from the day of the blizzard. I'm never entirely comfortable at these things, not close to anyone in the club, but I usually meet interesting people when I do go and end up glad I went. And this time I didn't want to miss out on going to L'Espalier, which I'd never been to and am unlikely to afford otherwise. Plus it's just two blocks from D's place.

The dining room itself was understated if not underwhelming, but the food was excellent and the staff extremely solicitous. It was tea, so there were all the little tea sandwiches -- cucumber and watercress, smoked salmon and creme, a deviled egg -- followed by plates of little fancy pastries. The menu was not for the diabetic! Which I'm not, but I knew all that white flour and sugar would make me light-headed. Anyway, the piece de resistance was a little "roasted guinea hen profiterole with garlic aioli" shaped like, well, more like a swan I think. See photo below.

[Individual pastry plate at L'Espalier's tea party]

I went back to D's wired up from sweets and caffeine which, added to all the stress adreline I've been dealing with lately, rather wiped me out. We napped, then cooked some Trader Joe's salmon dinner and frozen vegetables instead of going out. It may have been frozen dinners, but it was fish and veggies and, along with some good beer, it helped anchor me back on earth. I'd brought my Netflix dvd of Woody Allen's To Rome With Love, which was silly fluff but a nice armchair travel movie.

We got out for brunch on Sunday, and then, since it was reasonably warm (or at least, mostly devoid of chilling wind) we had a nice walk over to the South End and back. Brunch was delicious - we both had the breakfast burrito at the Met Back Bay.

[Breakfast burrito with hash brown potatoes, Met Back Bay]

I seem to be in a space of heightened sensitivity these days, and all too much prey to insecurities, both real (and there are so many real uncertainties in my work and financial life right now) and imagined. I realized this weekend it would probably be wise to start meditating again to have some centering, particularly in this time of flux. My physiatrist, who I'm seeing for painfully overused neck muscles (all that computer work, mainly), recommended it as well -- particularly classes rather than just on my own. Will have to look into it...

Indulgence

[Tiramisu at Caffe dello Sport in the North End, Boston; 3/11/12]

The North End seemed as good a walking destination as any on Sunday, especially with Italian treats awaiting. Along the way, the Public Garden was full of people, dogs, and squirrels. Alas, the poor ducks were confined to an ever diminishing strip of puddle in the drained lagoon, awaiting refill (last year, it was filled in early April, so they have a few weeks to go). For the record, that's D's tiramisu in the photo above  (I tasted it - delicious!). I had the traditional North End cannoli (excellent) along with a cappucino.

It was a very indulgent weekend. After visiting the Mapparium with my girlfriends on Saturday (see previous post), we headed to Newbury Street, where we were enticed in by the Mayan Weaver shop's 50% off jewelry sale, then we stopped at Swiss chocolatier Teuscher for a heavenly champagne truffle, followed by some art gallery browsing, and eventually cocktails at the Met Back Bay. After my friends headed home, D and I tried out the new creperie on Newbury St, which was very good and reasonably priced, topping it off by sharing a delicious chocolate mousse crepe.

[Lemoncellos in a North End grocer; 3/11/12]

Despite our indulgence, we did not set the Back Bay on fire. However, yesterday evening, a transformer blew out and caught fire, spewing out billowing black smoke and cutting power to over 20,000 residences across the city, including D's. He called me as the smoke was blowing heavily through his neighborhood and I told him to grab some things from his apartment - pitch black by then - and come out to my place in the suburbs. As of tonight, power is still out for over 12,000 residences, half of which are expected to still be dark until tomorrow, so I believe he'll be a refugee here for another night.

[Caffe dello Sport, North End]

In other news, I had a very enjoyable lunch interview today and need to send off some writing samples. I thought things went well, I liked the guys I talked to very much, and it sounds like good work in a much more pleasant working environment. We'll see...

Gifts from the Garden

[Figs from my landlady's garden; 10/4/11]

My landlords came by while I was at work yesterday to give me the screens for the two windows I've had air conditioners in all summer. They left the screens in my front hall, along with two brown paper bags full of goodies -- figs from their fig tree and lovely misshapen, delicious tomatoes from their garden. They'd brought me some two years ago, but last year's excessive summer heat yielded very little from either. I guess this mostly mild summer was kinder.

I'm not sure yet what to do with the figs -- any ideas? I saw a nice recipe for a fig gallette online, though I don't have a lot of figs I guess I could make a small gallette. And maybe save a few for a pork loin dinner? The tomatoes I can use to make a little sauce for pasta.

Cambridge Wandering

[Japanese restaurants, Porter Exchange. Cambridge MA; 9/18/10]

We went to Cambridge on Saturday so I could shop for a couple of new throw pillow for my old couch (a compromise since I'd intended to buy a new couch when I sold my condo, which of course didn't happen). My 23-year-old couch will have to stay for now, but stuffing was flying from the holes in my throw pillows so they had to go. While in Cambridge, we stopped in at the Porter Exchange and had some excellent tempura at Tampopo, one of the tiny (and cheap!) Japanese noodle restaurants that are usually packed with Asian students, but at 3:00 had a few tables open. I had a nice miso soup and tempura that was amazingly tender and light -- delicious.

[Tampopo, Porter Exchange]

I didn't have any luck finding pillows for my couch in Porter Square (we later drove out to the 'burbs and found some at a Home Goods store), but I did find a small area rug to go under my desk chair to protect my landlord's carpet. (One night last week, I had an overwhelming desire to finally move my almost unused desk out of the din of the dark spare room into the sunny back room in my apartment, which I should have done two years ago.) Anyway, rather than put a clear plastic desk mat under the chair, I found this wild Turkish-patterned "Mad Mat" at Nomad (see mat example here, except mine was half the price) that will protect the carpet and might induce inspiring hallucinations besides. The mats are made from woven recycled plastic, are easy to clean, and should be pretty sturdy as they're meant to be used outdoors. Fun!

[Memorial Drive, Cambridge; 9/19/10]

On Sunday, we drove back into Cambridge (a couple of miles from my apartment) so we could wander around Harvard Square and down by the river. On Sundays in the warmer weather they close off Memorial Drive to traffic and leave it to cyclists and runners and strollers. I wasn't feeling too well, but wanted to get outside and enjoy the warm day. We ended up at the Algiers coffee house on Brattle Street, which I've gone to for years but never realized has a roof deck! It was beautiful up there, at least until our food arrived and attracted bees, so we moved inside. I guess they run out of pollen this time of year, because they get very pesty if you try to eat outdoors.

[D enjoys the sun on the roofdeck at the Algiers]

September can be such a lovely time of year in New England. The oppressive heat of summer is gone, yet the sun shines and it's warm enough to be outside without bundling up. The grass hasn't gone to brown yet and a few flowers remain in bloom even as the leaves on the trees begin to turn from green to red and yellow. Even so, the early fading light makes us a little sad as we know what's coming!

[Rosa rugosa at a house on Brattle Street]

Gazpacho!

[The fixings]

Yesterday after work, I went to the local farmer's market and bought fresh heirloom tomatoes, a green bell pepper, and some crisp cucumbers -- all with the intention of making gazpacho. Tonight, I whipped up a batch to take with me to Boston for the weekend. Couldn't help but taste it, you know, to make sure it was acceptable. Yummmmm! It's been a long time since I've made it, but the tomatoes are wonderful this year. You can find the recipe I use here on an old post.

[The results]

Full of Beans

[Romano beans from the Belmont farmer's market; 7/8/10]

In summers when I was growing up in southern New Hampshire, we enjoyed fresh vegetables from my grandfather's acre-sized garden all summer long. Besides huge quantities of tomatoes, which they canned and we used in spaghetti sauce and stews all winter, he grew peppers, carrots, cucumbers, celery, lettuce, corn, radishes, potatoes, and probably more that I can't think of or was too picky to eat. But a favorite was the yellow wax beans he grew that my dad would bring back in large bags for us to clean and pinch the ends off of. My mom and I would sit in the back yard snapping yellow beans into a mixing bowl full of water. Then she'd lock them into the pressure cooker until the regulator would rock madly and the beans steam-softened into near-mush (alas). We'd slather butter on them and they tasted like heaven.

More recently, living out in Grafton, Mass. near lots of farm stands, I discovered that Romano beans have a flavor reminiscent of those yellow beans of summer, especially when slathered with butter. I'd eat an entire plate of them, sometimes with an ear of corn or two on the side. Unlike a lot of other vegetables, they still seem to be available for a short time, a summer-only treat, from farm stands or, as I found today, from the local farmer's market. We've been in the midst of a high-humidity heat wave here in the Boston area (you might say we're steaming into wilted beans ourselves) and, not wanting to fuss over supper tonight, I was happy to cook a plateful of the fat beans (about 6 minutes in boiling salted water), nibble at a store-bought rotisserie chicken, and slather butter on both the beans and a couple of slices of 7-grain bread for a nice summer meal.

Hot Stuff

[The Fiery Cuisines cookbook, copyright 1991]

I was perusing my cookbooks this morning when I pulled this old one off the shelf. I've forgotten how I burnt the back cover, but it's charred right through the index, and toast colored traces travel throughout American Innovations right back into The Orient (although not as far as Southeast Asia and The Pacific).

I don't think I tried very many of the recipes. Tandori Chicken from The Indian Subcontinent is dog-eared and I remember marinating chicken for skewering on the grill. Curried Goat from The Caribbean? Surely not. But there were two recipes from the Southeast Asia and The Pacific chapter that I made frequently: Malaysian Chicken and Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice). The sauce in Malaysian Chicken is a delicious blend of dried red chiles, onion, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, and wine vinegar. Quite easy to make, and mildly hot (depending on the number of chiles). Nasi Goreng has a lot of curry powder in it, the rest being rice, eggs, onion, garlic, chiles, cashews, soy sauce, chicken broth, and chicken. I think I stopped making it because it had too much curry and was too hot, although today I'd look for better quality curry powder, leave out the extra chiles, and perhaps have better results.

I'm still thinking about writing about food and health, although there are gazillions of writers in those areas. There are gazillions of people writing on any subject. So I guess you just write what interests you and write from your own life and perspective. What more can you do? Then there's the question of a name if I start at new side blog. Antacid Dreams? Cracked Wheat?

---

This morning's breakfast is fairly typical for me: fresh berries and papaya in yogurt (I blend half plain and half French vanilla yogurt from Stonyfield Farms, a local organic dairy), toasted and buttered Ezekiel English Muffins (the sprouted grains are easier to digest and low glycemic), and strong Irish breakfast blend tea with milk. The extra bowl of fruit is for D, who's sleeping in this morning after too much awake time sometime during the night. I rarely sleep late myself, in part because I start thinking about breakfast...

Leap

[Weeks Footbridge, Cambridge, MA; 6:45pm, 5/20/10]

It felt like summer yesterday, prompting these young women to leap into the Charles River near Harvard Square. The river immortalized in the song, "Dirty Water," is now reportedly clean enough to swim in "on most days" (although it's illegal - as is, I suspect, jumping off Weeks Footbridge). To me, it's still a leap of faith, so to speak.

I left work early yesterday afternoon to meet a friend in Harvard Square before 5pm to have dinner and a walk. A scene from modern life: When I got there, I stood outside our meeting place and called on my cell to tell her I was there, and she told me she was there, too -? It turned out we were standing on either side of a pole talking to each other on our cells.

We grabbed an outdoor table at the Grafton Street pub, which has a lovely cafe patio out front (except that it seems to be on the corner of a bus/truck route, so periodically beset by roaring engines). I had a lovely Niçoise salad with seared fresh tuna, delicious and very healthy albeit augmented by the irresistible shoestring pub fries off my friend's fish and chips plate.

[Niçoise salad (and fish and chips) at Grafton Street]

Then it was off to walk through bustling Harvard Square and along the river.

Noho and snow

[Viva Fresh Pasta, Northampton MA; 10/17/09]

We took a drive out to Northampton on Saturday, about 100 miles west of Boston, straight out the Mass Turnpike. D had never been there, so I showed him around campus at my alma mater as well as the many shops and restaurants downtown. After our wanderings, we ended up at Viva Fresh Pasta for an early dinner. We'd passed the place a couple of times but ultimately couldn't pass up the sweet potato ravioli with maple walnut saute on the specials menu. At least that's what D chose, quite happily. I started with a bowl of butternut squash bisque followed by grilled chicken with romesco sauce and asparagus, with fresh garlic-parsley fettuccine - all scrumptious. As the name implies, Viva Fresh Pasta makes all their own pasta, but everything else we sampled was excellent as well. We were also lucky to snag a great table in one of the two front bay windows (see above).

[Paradise Pond view, Smith College campus]

It was a rather gray and chilly day, but at least we had none of the rain that was predicted to wash out the entire weekend. On Sunday afternoon, however, it went beyond rain to fat wet snowflakes that fell all afternoon and into the evening, although generally melting on contact, at least where I live. Out in Foxboro, the New England Patriots played at what I first thought was a hockey rink when the game came on the TV because of the white field (a ridiculous blowout over the Titans, 59 to 0). We had considered going to the Head of the Charles regatta in Cambridge on Sunday until we saw first the cold rain in the morning and then the snow in the afternoon. So after running errands by car, we stayed in with the football game and I puttered in the kitchen making a turkey meatloaf (see leftovers tonight for dinner, below), warming up the house with the hot oven.