Ok, so one of these days, it will be time for some more recipes. But in the meantime I have been oggling at these pictures from my recent trip to Tul’um with D. It was magic because somehow we timed it to be at the beach just in between hurricanes. This for those of you from non-hurricane places meant that it was cool, clear, and best of all everyone else had left for inland adventures.

If you haven’t been to Tulum, go and don’t tell your friends how incredible it is. It is still very wild feeling smashed agains the Caribbean coast with no grid at the beach. It’s quiet. The moon is big. There are turtles, flamingos, crabs, and sunburnt germans. It’s amazing.

So a few of my favorites from Tul’um are:

El Nave: and amazing Italian restaurant downtown with good wine, great pasta, and completely un-understandable spanish speaking Italian waiters.

El Camello Jr: This is my favorite restaurant in Tul’um. It is always packed with big Mexican families, bureacrats, and güeros. The best things here are everything but I have tried and loved the fried fish and seafood soup. But really, really I ate ceviche for like half of the meals we were there. With a michelada of course!

I know that I have said this before…probably more than once even, but I just have a hard time eating at all when it is so hot. It’s not that I don’t love many things about what the heat brings, I love the dramatic dawn and dusk skies of thunderstorms blown through. I love the seemingly overnight change from dry crackly brown to lush green. I love naps in the middle of the day when it is the only sensible choice. But really I just don’t eat much.…and somehow for the last few weeks it’s been much less.

And my attention has been pulled into the realm of playing with my camera all the time…mostly outside with strangers. Here are some of those!

I love spring rolls…so that’s a good place to start and they are cool. They have lots of vegetables, it’s fun to make sauces, they are pretty! And you can eat them! So sometime between a downward dog and a headstand one morning I had a flash of inspiration to make these! I think they would be the best on a picnic on top of high hill with breeze and shade.

Portabello Vietnamese Salad Rolls

2 portabello mushrooms sliced into strips

1/4 cup soy sauce

Juice of two limes

2 tsp ginger

1 clove garlic pressed

Saute the mushrooms in the marinade until soft. Remove from heat and drain. Keep aside for rollin’

2 squares of bean thread vermicelli cooked and rinsed

1 package round rice wrappers

1 carrot sliced into sticks

2 japanese cucumbers sliced into sticks

2 c jicama sliced into sticks

1 head of lettuce washed and dried

1/2 c basil (I used Italian and Thai)

Assembling these salad rolls is a lot like making sushi. Dip the rice wrappers in a plate of warm water one by one and fill with your choice of ingredients.

So one of the magical parts of Merida are the buildings. It really is a cake color city..but every time I leave the house and walk around I am struck by the amazing layers of paint on houses. Maybe it’s the humidity or maybe its a secret that you only get to see by looking really close. Here are some of the walls closest to where I live.
So we keep it real here…or at least trying to keep it cool. This salad is best when you are tired and cooked lots of beets the day before and can make it in just a few minutes and eat out of a huge bowl. Maybe sitting on the floor. Maybe reading the book you’ve been wanting to read all day. I haven’t made this salad much here but last year when our farm was in full swing I would stumble my way home and make this salad at least once a week.

It’s hearty for a salad and paired with a good piece of bread or some quiche it’s really satisfying. I always find myself adding more and more goat cheese as I go along but let yourself taste your way into it and see what you think. Another great thing to add to this if you have it around is and orange. Light and sweet it goes perfectly with the other taste.

2 Beets boiled

2 c Arugula

2 tbsp Chevre goat cheese

2 tbsp walnuts

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Cut beets into cubes. In a salad bowl combine beets and arugula. Sprinkle cheese and walnuts on top and dress with lemon juice and olive oil.

So this is just one of those things that tasted so good that I spread out eating it all week. I ate it in tiny bowls and each day it seemed like something new. And it was never very pretty…here the only sweet potatoes
I could find were these tiny ones that when cooked turned an ashy gray color. But they tasted amazing…so somethings will just be beautiful in your imagination.

This salad is one that I think D made me a long time ago and I remembered it last week while walking down the street. It came back to me like some tastes do foggy at the corners sort of like old dreams. When I made it this time I added curry powder and lots more onions than before but it is still pretty similar.

Salad:

2 cups cooked and drained black beans

2 cups chopped sweet potatoes

1/2 red onion chopped finely

1/2 cup cilantro

Juice of 3 limes

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp curry powder

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 habanero chile diced

Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake sweet potatoes for 25 minutes or until done but not soft. Let cool. Mix with black beans, onions, cilantro, lime juice, curry, habanero, and oil. Chill and serve.

Back in the heat and the slowness D and I have been spending our days hiding from the sun and only coming out at night when the wind picks up to walk through this cake colored city. As I find my way back into life here I have been spending a lot of time wanting comforting nourishing soups.

They make me feel full and whole like other foods don’t. And let’s face it I could eat soup just about everyday and be happy. My body likes and I love to cook it. It feels like magic to watch all the things mix together with their olfactory pulls and pushes.

And a few days ago D roasted a great chicken that was just calling to made into stock. This soup is like the little cousin of spicy thai soups. It’s more sweet and full of fresh herbs…lighter, perfect for a hot summer day.

4 cups chicken stock

2 cups coconut milk

2 cups mushrooms halved

1 cup shredded chicken

1 cup sliced red onion

2 tbsps finely cut ginger

4 cloves of garlic

6 stalks of lemongrass cut into small pieces

1/2 cup of cilantro

Juice of 4 limes

1 cup of cooked rice

Heat the chicken stock up just below a simmer and add garlic, onions, lemongrass, and ginger. Cover and let cook for 20 minutes on low. Add mushrooms, coconut milk, and chicken and cook for 15 more minutes. Just before serving add lime juice. Serve soup over rice and garnish generously with cilantro.

Now that I have been here a while I am no longer dizzy. The first few days here I was rocking and rolling with the change in environment.  I arrived in Northern California dizzy with the beauty of springtime here. These hills with the soft greens of a wet spring do something to me. I start to walk really slow, see mice and jack rabbits, notices leaves unfurling. A few weeks of being here has felt like long drinks of cold water…so thanks for that!

And eating is simple and sweet here. As one of my friends in Mexico says, “people in California eat a lot of leaves,” and I am happily munching away on leaves and rice.

So yesterday in between a walk in the vineyard and some work I made a salad that tickled me. Here is what went in it. Feel free to adapt it to your refrigerator! And I know a few weeks ago I had promised to write more and I am ready now.…

Spring Salad:

Mixed baby greens

Blueberries

Feta crumbled

Basil chopped fine

Red onion sliced thin

Avocado sliced

Mix in a bowl and serve with some good olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Maybe eat with someone who makes you laugh.

xo

Sometime when I am coming up with new recipes it feels a lot like painting. I start to sense what I want to create in other places. I wake up thinking about cilantro or remembering a story from my life that tasted fascinating. More or less that is what happened today. I have been cooking lots this week and feeling really inspired by the sheer force of what a hot spring offers here in Yucatan.

Here are some of marvels of Spring:

–Voracious ants that move four times the speed of non-tropical ants

–Bags of mangos for 20 pesos…amazing!

–Afternoons that render you useless for anything else except long naps in the hammock

–Nights so hot that you can swim!

–Tons of choices of chiles including the ones below called chile xcatic

There are lots more but these are some of the parts of spring that are blowing my mind! Today though, was really  just like Sundays should be because for two hours in the middle of the day I sat in cool, beautiful theater listening to the symphony. For me it’s amazing to think so many people can all play music at the same time with such precision and passion. It feels very tactile and the whole time I feel like I am being led to a mysterious (and usually foggy in my imagination) new land where violas and oboes lead the way.

So after being transported I came home and got in some serious hammock time reading Zeitoun. What a great book! Ok, I am digressing, no? Something about the hammock or the symphony finally coaxed me into the kitchen to do some deep frying! It’s a habit that I don’t pull out that often but when I do I am usually glad! I have been thinking about corn fritters for a few weeks. I don’t even know when I started to love these…but here are they are. Eat them hot from the grease! The sauces are a great start but they would be good with a little aoli on top or pesto too…Mmm maybe I’ll make some more sauces tomorrow.

Corn Fritters:

1 cup fine ground cornmeal

1 cup flour

11/4 cup milk

1 egg

1 tsp salt

(2 sweet peppers optional)

Grease for frying at high temperatures

Heat about two inches of grease on the stove in a deep skillet or sauce pan. Stir together dry ingredients and crack egg into it. Mix 1 cup milk into mixture. Do some tests with the grease and the batter. Drop a spoonful of batter in the grease once it is hot before it’s smoking. The batter show crackle and pop in the grease and start to turn brown. Turn the fritter over until both sides are are evenly browned. Remove from grease and drain. Taste this one to check the consistency of the batter. I made some with one cup of milk and added a little more liquid to the end of the batch. I like the drier ones better but the batter was harder to work with so play around with this and see what you like.

Once you have the right temperature of grease drop spoonfuls of batter into the grease and fry away! Serve’em hot they are best that way.

Makes about 30 small fritters

Sauces:

Mango Ginger Compote:

2 mangos sliced into small pieces

2 tsps. ginger grated

2 tbsp sugar

1 cup of water

Cook it all up in a sauce pan on low with a lid. I cooked mine for about a half an hour til the mango started to disintegrate. Yum! It will be delicious in yoghurt. It’s a great thing to do with really, really ripe mangos, y’know the ones I mean?

Tzatziki:

1/2 cup yoghurt

1/2 cup sour cream

Juice of 1/2 half lemon

1/2 cucumber diced

1 clove of garlic diced

1 tsp olive oil

Salt to taste

Mix it all together in a bowl and chill! Serve with umm…everything! I like it on toast.

Tomatillo Guacamole:

1/2 white onion

4 tomatillos peeled

1/2 habanero, jalapeño

1 avocado

Juice of 1 lime

1 head of cilantro chopped

Salt to taste

Boil the onion, tomatillos and chile in a sauce pan for 10 minutes. Remove from water and transfer to the blender. Blend until smooth. Add lime juice, avocado, cilantro, and salt. Blend all together until smooth. Chill and serve…again, it’s good with everything!

Ok out there in Internetland…I hope your Sunday was brilliant too!

We’re back in Merida after spending ten days in the campo with a lovely group of  university students and their host-stay families. I am feeling so inspired by their enthusiasm and kindness that I feel like all I have thought about since they left are these moments where something was discovered, a new joke was made, or noticing a  part of ourselves. With that said I am thrilled to be back in my house with it’s beautiful high ceilings and brightly colored walls. In the past week, it finally got hot! In the day it’s around 40 celsius which means that you stick to yourself all the time and sweat even when you are not moving. It also means that it’s perfect for reading all afternoon and eating lots of cold things from the fridge. As I have been unpacking from leading this trip (both metaphorically and physically) I have been dreaming up new tastes to explore!

One of them is puffed rice and all the delicious spices that people dress it with. So, I set about trying to figure out how to make that but realized that I don’t have a cannon to pressurize and shoot rice out of.….so it’ll have to wait.

The other which to be fair was D’s brilliant (and very necessary idea) was to share a few of the aquas frescas that we make here all the time. In the heat, one just has to keep drinking liquids. Aguas frescas are a Mexican stand-by. Look out for some of my own tweaks on the standards…coming soon!

But this recipe is one that I meant to share before I left for the trip but between everything else I realized today it never made it’s way on to the blog. I have been playing with these Asian inspired salads after seeing all of the amazing creations from my new Korean friend at the farmers market. Every week she tells me about the new incredible things she’s made with a little carrot, turnip, mango…or whatever she has. The time before last she asked me how I prepared my eggplant and I told her that I usually marinate and pan-fry it. She said, “Try it this way. Steam it for 20 minutes. Take it out and marinate it for 24 hours in the fridge!”

So I gave it a shot…and I am convert. It’s amazing, filling but not heavy like eggplant can be.

Sesame Soy Eggplant, Tofu and Green Bean Salad

4 Japanese eggplants cut in small pieces

1 block of tofu cubed

1/2 pound of green beans

2 tbsp sesame seeds

1 avocado

Green onions to garnish

Dressing:

Juice of one orange

Juice of one lime

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 clove garlic crushed

Honey to taste

Steam the eggplant for twenty minutes or until it is soft and changes color. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl and put the eggplant in to marinate for 24 hours. The next day deep-fry the tofu cubes in small batches until the outsides are crispy and light brown. Steam the green beans for 20 minutes. Mix tofu, green beans, and eggplant in a bowl and chill. Serve sprinkled with sesame seeds, green onions, and avocado on top.

Settling into a new house can be a soft slow process. After spending last week buying pots and pans and forks, I have really enjoyed the last few days of getting to cook, eat, sleep, and be in the new space. I am noticing the sounds of birds in my neighborhood and the little girl next door. Also I have been exploring outside finding the best places to buy grapefruits and the store that stays open late with it’s bright lights selling beer and botanas. And this unexplainable thing has happened I want to cook and eat Asian food every day. It’s a little ironic to be in Mexico with my taste buds dreaming about sesame oil, crispy noodles, and dumplings, but there it is for whatever it’s worth. So I’ve decided to go for it and see what I can come up with.

Also I am exploring fruits. There are so many here. Many of them I have never seen and have no idea what to expect. The other day while in the market I spotted these little brown fruits called piñuelas. They only grow in the forest from bromeliad plant, which is an air plant like those long tendrilled plants you find in fancy hotel fountains or growing on branches. The viejita who was selling them was this tiny old woman with a few gold teeth and this smile that would crack the best of them. She taught me the name in Mayan but I can’t remember. I’ll try, next time. So the fruit looks like a banana flower and you eat it by peeling it and squeezing out the inside which is white with crunchy black seeds. The first time it was good and little acidic like and kumquat and the second time it tasted like barbeque. The jury is still out on this one.

But back to Asian food and all it’s wonders. One thing I love is tea eggs. My friend Kelli would make these and I would always be amazed at them in their dark shells cool in the refrigerator waiting to be eaten. While she was cooking them I remember the bright, enticing smell of the star anise and whatever else she had decided to put in them that day. When I make them I love the ritual of cracking but not peeling the egg and watching the color bleed into the white. This time I only make six but next time I will make twice as many and keep them for snacks in the fridge. They are perfect in the afternoon with some spicy greens or rice.

Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs

6 eggs
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 star anise
2 tablespoons black tea (or 2 tea bags)
2  cinnamon sticks
2 strips tangerine or mandarin orange peel

Place the eggs in saucepan with enough water so they are covered and bring to a boil Boil for 5 minutes and remove from heat. Rinse with cool water. At this point, crack the shells of each egg with the back of a spoon. Make the cracks big and dramatic because this is how the sauce seeps into the eggs. Put the eggs back in the sauce pan with soy sauce, anise, orange peels, tea, and 3 cups of water (or enough to cover the eggs). Cook at a low simmer for 20–30 minutes and remove from heat. Let it all cool and leave the eggs in the liquid. Refrigerate the eggs in the sauce over night or up to 24 hours. Peel the eggs and serve them!

I meant to post this yesterday but I got sucked in to reading more and more articles about the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan. I am so sad for this tragedy and I am sending all my loving kindness to the people of Japan. Also for all you out there, if you have any ideas about how to help please let me know and I’ll make sure to put them up here.

I am not sure how many of you have moved twice in a month but for those of you who have you know. It’s sort of an energy drain to say the least. And miraculously after lots of tacos, pizza, and urgent lemonade stops we are settled in our new lovely house. And I have a few pots and pans to cook with, a working stove, and my inspiration for cooking is coming back.

And Saturday is the best here because of the mercado fresco where I got some amazing bread, tomatoes, and fresh ricotta! And so I made a picnic to eat on the back porch on the languid Merida afternoon what could be better. We ate some cucumber salad with rice wine vinegar and this tasty new gingery grapefruit juice mix. It felt kind of like stopping time! Mmm…

My arugula pesto is a changing kind of recipe sometimes including some delicious Romano or other cheese, sometimes lemon rind.

Arugula Pesto:

1/2 pound arugula washed and dried

1/2 cup walnuts

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

Juice of two limes (or lemons)

Put it all in the blender and whir until it’s a smooth texture. I keep adding olive oil while I blend if it’s not smooth enough. After you make it store it in an airtight container to fight off the discoloration from air.

I like it in omelettes with goat cheese, on sandwiches with ricotta and tomatoes, on pasta with any veggies.