What I learned on my summer vacation

Each summer, in an (albeit abbreviated) Italian tradition called Ferragosto, my office closes for one week. I had big plans to go to Turkey. When those plans fell through I tried to create a week full of mini vacations along with some down time. I had a long wish list, and as I sit here typing on the eve of my return to the office, I feel happy and relaxed. And I learned a few things, too.

1. When you go away for a week in summer, you miss one week of peak produce shopping. Doh!

2. I don't see Mara enough. In addition to her other qualities, she is a wonderful cook.

3. Cape May is beautiful, with lovely beaches and charming architecture full of old farmhouses, beach bungalows and Victorian homes. Everyone grows tomatoes, making them the zucchini of the area. Roll up your car windows or people will leave some on your front seat. If you're a visitor from up North, be a good guest and you might get sent home with a small cardboard box full. Score!

4. Go off the beaten path there, to a local bar called Mayer's (Meyer's?). They are known for their scallops but I will remember them for the dude who tried to pick me up by offering me a plate of gravy fries. Also memorable was the weathered fisherman who explained how much less fun fishing is now that the fishing stocks have disappeared. He also told me that I am "beautiful," that I "look like Chelsea Clinton." Hmmm.

5. Leaving a buffer on the back end of vacation is a great idea. It leaves time for farmer's market shopping (corn, eggplant, ground cherries, peaches, nectarines), hanging out with bro/sis -in-law and nephew, painting the livingroom, laundry, yoga, birthday drinks, Brooklyn Flea, La Colombe coffee, etc.

6. There are so many delicious things you can do with tomatoes. BLT was terrific (Grandaisy bread, mayo, Dom's bacon, Cape May garden tomato); roasted tomatoes (with parmesan cheese, spinach ravioli and pesto) are also a great idea; snacking on cherry tomatoes is never a bad idea.

6. I said I would do some work, and I didn't do any work. i think this was probably a very good idea.

Be where you are

One of my favorite concepts (and practices) is that of eating place-based foods. Place-based foods are those that have a deep connection to the land where they grow. That connection is a physical one, as well as a historic one, and it is reflected in the taste, look, feel, and culture of the food.

Last weekend I spent my birthday--a milestone one, they say--on the North Fork of Long Island, and I focused my activities and my eating on place-based traditions.

I went wine-tasting and swirled in my mouth the product of the relatively new grape growing traditions of the East End. On the island only certain varieties grow well, and as a result, the menus are populated by Chardonnays and Merlots, with some Gruners and Rieslings mixed in. You don't go to Long Island to drink Pinot Grigio; be where you are. Drink where you are.

I ate corn. Lots of it. The North Fork's sweet summer corn is outstanding, and extra good when grilled in its husks by your big brother (hypothetically speaking, of course). I ate homemade lobster rolls, made with local lobster--Una's recipe, via Ethan, and outstandingly simple and good. Also, local wild striped bass, more than once, and tomatoes, tomatoes tomatoes (blight be damned). There were no local peaches, because it turns out all those peaches at Union Square all come from Jersey. So, I guess you don't go to Long Island to eat peaches; be where you are. Eat where you are.

And the birthday thing: I think I am meant to be scared by this birthday, by the fact that I haven't figured out my whole life yet, by the fact that I am getting older and nobody lives forever. But instead I walked on the beach, and I rode bikes with my friends, experiencing what it must feel like to be a kid in the suburbs, learning to feel comfortable on a bike, thrilling at the freedom of exploring the neighborhood, tooling around with your buddies, baking in the hot sun.

My birthday mantra: maintain a place-based tradition. Be where you are.

Singaporean dessert

Before it's too late and I have forgotten everything, I must write about dessert.  Dessert in Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia is not like anything I have ever had before.  Wheat flour makes few appearances, same with chocolate.  You would think then that there was nothing good left to eat for dessert, but this would not be true.

Picture this:

a bowl full of chopped gummy bears, sweet corn, and beans. Topped with Italian ices.

This is called ice kachang and it's the picture I led with when I began this series.  Here's another closeup so you can see the corn and stuff.  Maybe it was all the satay and beer I had before it (or the week-long food orgy leading up to this, my final night in Asia), but this wasn't my favorite thing I had.  My favorites were in Kuala Lumpur...

At a sweet little restaurant

 called Precious, in the Central market, we had chendal, sago melaka and bubor chacha.  The whole Malaysian gang I was with were very very excited to see these things on the menu and declared these renditions to be "very very very good."  I myself had nothing to compare them to.  They looked like nothing I had ever seen and I thought they were OUTSTANDING.  

The one at the top of the pic is, I believe, the sago melaka, a divine mound of glutinous rice balls submerged in a sweet coconut broth. Does this even do it justice? Chendal is stranger, also incredible--a mound of shaved ice, with that same coconut liquid, and some brown stuff--brown 

sugar? and then topped with these glutinous green stringy things.  how do I make this sound appetizing?  My food writing skills are failing me.  You'd have to eat it to understand.

Weird Stuff (Street Food)

In Bahasi Malay and Indonesian, warung means stall.  I am a sucker for a food stall, as we all know. Like my hero Calvin Trillin, I've got the gene that makes me love buying street food and eating while standing up.  In just 10 hours in Kuala Lumpur, I ate like a king.  Malaysia beckons me back....I had goreng pisang (battered and fried banana, right), and some thin crispy crepe with peanuts (see below).

 In Indonesia, I showed some uncharacteristic caution and resisted all food carts except the grilled corn being sold at the top of the mountain where we went to look at Mount Merapi (oh man what was that place called again...?).

In Singapore, the street food is housed inside, in hawker centres, where things are clean and tidy, and handily grouped all together. Calvin Trillin wrote famously about them in the New Yorker, and there's a guide to them you can pick up while in Singapore.  I trusted Claire and Huzir as my guides, and didn't go wrong. 

Highlights: 

Carrot Cake.  Which is not at all what it sounds like.  Glutinous chunks of what Claire reported to be "grated root vegetable," sauteed in garlicky soy sauce.  I couldn't stop eating it despite my overly full belly. 

Teo Chew (braised duck with rice noodles): Man alive. So flavorful.

Rojak: We had a version of this peanut-sauced fruit salad while in Jogja, but this one was stranger and more delicious.  I will list the ingredients but you'll think I am joking.  Sliced guava, cucumber chunks, mango(?), and a few other fruits and vegetables, with chunks of giant fried churro.  Doused in an incredible peanut sauce. Oddly, inexplicably divine.

Chwee Kueh (steamed rice cakes with minced something or other on top): There is no end to how many ways I can enjoy rice products, apparently.

Apologies to Huzir for not calling the Char Kway Teow a highlight.

Weird Stuff, part 3 (Rijsttafel)

Rijsttafel meaning "rice table" in Dutch, ends up meaning a kind of lunch smorgasbord.  Or that's what it meant for us, anyway, as we sweated it out in the courtyard of the Hotel Mertua, gorging ourselves on a series of small Javanese plates.

Sitting atop our beautiful Jogja batik table cloth, they included the local salad teran chan--fresh grated coconut, ginger, sliced long beans, bean sprouts, and something else or two; homemade tempeh, which we were having for the second time, and is on a level that industrial tempeh just can't touch; serunding--another grated coconut dish, this one spiced and toasted I think; various satays; fried rice, noodles, etc.  

It is worth mentioning the distinctive taste of Javanese food.  Before we left Singapore we were warned by one person that the food's no good, assured by another that it is good, but very simple. I agree with the second person, though truth be told we ate only at our lovely hotel, the Bale Raos royal restaurant at the Kraton, and here.  And it's true--no sauces, nothing fancy, just simple ingredients, most of which we saw growing at some point, whether it be in the rice paddy fields in the local villages or up in the terraced mountains near Mt. Merapi. 

weird stuff, part 2 (breakfast)

My first day in Singapore, not 2 hours off the plane, we headed to Chinatown for dimsum.  I earned my stripes sucking bbq sauce off of chicken feet. Slurping red bean steamed buns and shrimp dumplings, blinking off jetlag and enjoying my new discovery: non breakfast food for breakfast. 

For the next two days, I drooled over nasi lemak: coconut rice with chili paste, little dried crunchy fish and then a big fried fish on top. Also good for breakfast is nasi goreng, javanese fried rice. Between all the breakfast rice and, well, the lunch and dinner rice (not to mention dessert rice--more to come on that), I am now basically one giant rice ball.

First day home and I am back on Cheerios and milk. What's up with that?

Another Singapore specialty is kaya toast, a kind of coconut custard spread on big fluffy white crustless bread, and lightly toasted.  We had this only the once, but it was delicious, and compelling.

you eat weird stuff, part one

For centuries, travelers and "discoverers" have encountered new countries and new cultures and they have thought or said: "you eat weird stuff here!"  Some of those intrepid swashbucklers then add: "Can I taste?"  I am one of said intrepid discoverers, leading with her tongue.

I have just returned from nearly two weeks traveling Singapore, Malaysia (for 10 food-filled hours), and Indonesia.  Claire and Huzir took pains to introduce me to all of the important dishes, fruits, and tastes on offer.  As Huzir feared I would, I am now publicly declaring that I have met my match in those two. They love food journeys as much as I do.

I took pictures of nearly everything, and will chronicle it all here in such detail that your eyes will bleed. Or your stomach growl.  Whatevs.  I begin tonight, when I should be asleep already, with:

DRINK.

Upon arrival in Jogja (that's the island of Java, hey now), our houseboys greeted us with a welcome drink.  Last time I saw such a maneuver was on "Fantasy Island," and the gesture was lost on me.  Suddenly, on that hot Indonesian patio, I understood why we greet visitors with a taste of their new home. This drink sought to transform us from the inside out, sending streams of rose syrup, cinnamon, tamarind and lemon grass through our veins, synching our pulses with those of the Javanese.  This isn't it pictured here, but it's something similar.

In fact, at every turn, each time I reached for a Coca Light (see my recent HuffPo post on that ol' silly habit), Claire pushed me to try something new.

Including:

cincau: seaweed jelly cubes in syrup--was that coconut?

avocado "juice": basically an avocado smoothie. hello!

fresh squeezed sugar cane, with one of them mini limes

kickapoo joy juice: this is not a name I have made up. Seriously.

and the list goes on. 

In fact, I took a pic of a menu at a coffee shop (not what we think of when we say coffee shop. Something else) and it gives you a sense of all the crazy beverages they've got going on. 

Carolina Gold

2 months ago I went to visit my peeps in Columbia, South Carolina, and took a moment to visit Anson Mills (see my photo gallery on the SFUSA blog). Glenn Roberts--heritage grain genius, artisanal food entrepeneur, and all around great guy--handed us bags of rice on our way out, bags that have been idling in my freezer until last week's potluck lunch at the office.

I made two iterations; the first was the filling in Mark Bittman's stuffed peppers (or as I like to call them, "Amy's stuffed peppers"). The second, I made up, and darned if it wasn't good. Mostly, I think, because it showcased the rice-beautiful Carolina Gold.

1 leek, washed, trimmed, and sliced into thin half moons
1 cup Anson Mills Carolina Gold rice
2 cups water
3 tbsp Kerrygold butter
fresh basil leaves, chiffonaded (ribbons)
the zest and juice of one lemon
salt, pepper


In a big saucepan, saute the leeks in 2 tbsp of the butter until soft and transluscent, salting a bit as you go
add the rice, stirring to coat
add the two cups of water, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to a simmer
cook 15 minutes or so until rice is moist and fluffy
take of heat and toss with remaining butter, lemon zest and juice, basil ribbons
more salt and pepper to taste
if you don't like it, add more butter!

variety is the spice of life

Here in NYC, I can eat pasta on Monday, Sushi on Tuesday, Thai food on Wednesday....but nothing is better than eating those foods in their original habitats. For me, a large part of travel is to learn the place with my taste buds.

But then sometimes a funny thing happens: sometimes I go to a place and the monotony of the food starts to get to me. And then I feel silly! After 10 days in Greece, I was craving something besides feta cheese. Last weekend, after four days of New Mexican food, in Santa Fe, I was tired of chiles and tortillas (a thing I never thought I'd say!).

New Mexican food is not quite Mexican and not quite Tex Mex, it's somewhere in between. There is a lot of ground beef--something you'd never see in Mexico--and of course, a lot of the native green chile.



Walking through the wonderful Santa Fe farmers' market, one is hit by the complex, spicy and smoky smell of the roasting of green chiles in large spinning drums, being turned by famers' hands. The roasted chiles are then chopped and sold in ziploc baggies, and the smell is intoxicating. The market has a warm, lively vibe that probably can only be created by a community of people eating that level of spice day and day out (at the dinner the night after the wedding I attended, I watched a small boy ask of his mother, before every bite of chips and salsa, "spicy?").

We ate a lot and we ate pretty well, the highlights being huevos divorciados at The Plaza Cafe, and an excellent breakfast burrito with chorizo and tomatillo salsa at Pasqual's.



But in the end, I was happy to come home to variety, the thing I know.