Lebanon part 1

Lebanon scenically and historically is one of my favorite countries.  The minute I stepped out of the airport and started making my way into Beirut I felt a strange sense of being home.  I thought the way the buildings layer each other up the mountains separated by the small and cozy streets that wind through the ancient city were charming and had an old world feel to it. 

Beirut is a city of contradictions mixed with passion for religion and politics.  Food is another passion in the mix, it could be the glue that precariously holds the country together and keeps a common thread running through the veins of the much-divided culture.    

There are so many delectable culinary treats in Lebanon, where do I begin? 

Olive oil

I’ll start with the olive oil.  Oh the olive oil!!  Many Lebanese people who live in Beirut have family homes in the south in a small village and some make their own olive oil.  It is the staple in Lebanese cooking, one friend of mine told me his grandmother told him to take a spoonful each morning to promote health and longevity.  Homemade olive oil is thick, chunky and dark the true meaning of olive green.  You can find homemade olive oil in small markets sold in the 1.5liter water bottles.  When I say thick and chunky, I mean it is almost syrup-like with little pieces of olive.  It is cloudy and one might not recognize it as olive oil at first glance.  It is amazing with a rich almost nutty flavor.  It’s a perfect condiment for any Middle Eastern dish or to cook with. 

Fruit in Lebanon

Lebanon is the only Middle Eastern countries that are entirely green with an abundance of fresh water and forests.  Produce is very cheap, fresh and rich with a wide variety.  The fruit cocktail is a staple street food in Lebanon.  It comes in a large plastic cup with over-flowing chunks of mixed fresh fruit; layers of avocado milk, strawberry and orange juices, plus topped with honey, ackkawi (a slightly salty, soft white cheese often paired with fruit) and pistachios.  Every shop may have a different style, but this is generally what it is.  These stores also sell fresh juices with a wide variety of fruit.  They layer the juices in colorful tiers in the glass, freshly made in front of you.  There’s really nothing like it! 

Breakfast in Lebanon

Breakfast in Lebanon like in Western countries can be very heavy, but it is also very delicious.  My favorite breakfasts have been the times I had a selection fouls and balila with pita bread and an assortment of vegetables and herbs.  Foul are legumes like flava beans cooked in olive oil, ground chickpeas, onion, garlic and cumin, served warm.  Balila is similar but is only chickpeas, also served warm.  You eat it with pita bread, vegetables, fruit and herbs such as radish, cucumber, tomato, lemon, za’atar and mint.  Lebanese food is always served with this mix of vegetable, fruit and herbs set on the table almost like a centerpiece.  The first time I had this breakfast was at a meeting for the restaurant I was building a sushi bar for. 

Another breakfast food quite popular in Lebanon is kunafi.  Kunafi is a semolina pastry stuffed with cheese served on a sesame bun with sweet sugar syrup served warm so the cheese is melted inside.  It is a delicious, filling pastry but sits in your stomach like a brick. 

Needless to say I did gain some weight in my 7 months in Lebanon.  I haven’t even begun to touch on the really interesting and mouth-watering culinary delights I experienced in this most unique and unpredictable country.  I am sorry for the lack of photographs, I would love to show you what I am writing about.  But when I left Lebanon I had to leave some things behind and my camera ended up to be one of them.  But I will write about that story in another time…

Keep eating!!

The Future of Food

I am going a little off topic today because of the documentary I just saw.  It is called The Future of Food.  I think it is a very important film to watch, people need to stay educated on what is going on with the food they eat and spend hard-earned money on.  This film is about the food and farming industry, the changes it has gone through in the past century and what affect it has on the world.  They cover brief histories on pesticides/insecticides/herbicides, the “Green Revolution” (the massive increase in farming agricultural foods), corporate-sponsored monoculture farms/reduction of biological diversity and the genetic engineering of agricultural food.  These topics tie into the main subject of this documentary, the food industry and frightening relationship it has with the agricultural corporations as well as the government.  It also covers how these genetically engineered foods are affecting human health and the health of the environment. 

This is an eye-opening documentary, an assault of information you may already know and information that may be new to you.  As a holistic nutrition student, I can’t tell you how important it is to eat organic.  The most important I would say are fruits and vegetables with thin skin and meat/dairy/eggs.  After watching this film however, I would add non-genetically modified wheat is also important.    I highly recommend taking a look at this film, you can watch it on Netflix and watch instantly.  If you do let me know your thoughts!!

Keep eating!!

Bahrain part 1: The weddings

convention center pre wedding set up

I catered two weddings in Bahrain.  Both were royal weddings, one Bahraini and one was Saudi Arabian.  I was working in Lebanon for a restaurant and hospitality company at the time.  They had 3 restaurants, 1 nightclub and a catering company; I was the head of the sushi/Japanese department.  I was sent to Bahrain along with the operations manager, another chef for traditional Middle Eastern food, the wedding coordinator, some cooks and no sushi assistants for me….!  The wedding parties were going to be huge; the first wedding was 600 people for a family member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia.  The second wedding was for 700 people for a Bahraini prince’s nephew.  And all sushi was to be prepared by myself, I felt a catastrophe forming in the humidity around Bahrain.  We were put up by the company at the Gulf Hotel, a really nice 5 star hotel in the center of the city.  The entrance to the hotel was impressive, a massive ceiling with an even larger chandelier of crystal.  To this day I have never seen a larger chandelier in real life.  The other chef, operations manager and I shared a 4-bedroom apartment in the hotel for the week of our stay.  It was pretty nice, but I was so busy during my week there that I barely took advantage of the apartment. 

My biggest concern for the week was how I was going to make sushi for 1300 people by myself.  Its not that the only food was going to be sushi, there was going to be PLENTY of traditional dishes, but regardless everyone knows how fast sushi can go when its made live in a buffet and its free.  Before I had a real panic attack, I got a saving grace.  It was the Japanese restaurant in the hotel.  The chef was away on holiday and the hotel gave me free use of the facilities and the staff!!  I was so relieved to have a sushi restaurant area to use; it was seriously a godsend.  I can’t imagine having to prepare all the sushi alone in the kitchen with all the other literally hundreds of dishes being prepared by the other chefs. 

Well needless to say, I got it done.  The rice cooked, fish sliced and rolls rolled.  I had to make most of the rolls a couple hours in advance for each wedding since it was a live sushi station within the buffet an I needed ready platters to set out to start.  The first wedding was outside in a huge tent.  Actually it was a few tents, but the food tent was the only one anyone was allowed to see.  There were tons of wait staff all women and all wearing these silver tutu style dresses with matching cropped jackets.  I spoke to one of the girls throughout the night and she told me everyone were maids for the Saudi sheikha (the sheikh’s wife).  I asked her how much she made a month in salary, she told me $400 usd.  She sends every penny of that home, saving a little for phone cards to call home.  It’s a normal scenario in the Middle East.   In Islamic weddings men and women are kept separate.  Only women were aloud to be in the tent, thus the live sushi from me.  Room for the monstrosity of a wedding was incredible.  White and pink gauze not to mention candles galore and glitter to boot!!  The food alone would have fed a village and the jewelry the women wore could have solved the economic problems in Sudan easily.  Even small girls wore diamond tiaras and drooping diamond earrings.  No dress cost under $12,000 but the women seemed to be busting out of the gowns, usually made for the human hangers we call models.  For the food there were whole roasted lambs and chicken, bowls of hummus, plates of kabobs and kibbeh.  Countless different salads like Lebanese fattoush and tabouli and other numerous side dishes like baba ganoush and foul medamas.  Deserts were amazing as well, some traditional and a colossal 10-tiered wedding cake that covered its own table.  It was decorated with ornate flowers and pearls, cake-boss eat your heart out!  All in all there were probably 200 different dishes spread out on about 7 long tables.  I felt slightly bashful that I had stressed about my measly sushi, it looked so small compared to the rest of the feast…  In an Arabic wedding, the bride and groom sit in a room with all the women where there is a rotation of songs, dancing with juice breaks scattered throughout and one food break.  Then back to more dancing, songs and juice late into the night.  The women came flooding in and the tent turned into a madhouse.   The women seemed starving and barged into the food-filled room.  It was as if it was each and everyone’s last meal!  I thought they would start bursting out of their ill-fitting couture evening gowns!!  They stuffed their heavily made up faces, re-teased their rather big hair and left in a matter of 20 minutes.  It was a chiffon and taffeta whirlwind, all by candlelight.  It was almost surreal.  The second wedding was inside a convention hall and to be honest was very, very much the same.  The décor was a bit different; the colors were baby blue with silver and the women servers wore a baby blue version of the same uniform from the other wedding.  It made me wonder if that was the fashion, or if they used the same uniform maker.  The Bahraini wedding was larger but seemed not to have as much money put into it.  I think it was the decor or the location of the event.  The room didn’t look as dressed up not as many flowers, gauze or candles.   Or maybe this family just had slightly better taste; I’m still not sure to this day.  The night went pretty much the same as the first wedding, a blur of couture and diamonds came whirling in, leaving empty plates and a picked through buffet I its wake.  It was something to experience.  Even today I do not know what to think of those two nights, should I be in awe or disgusted?  Which are you?  I really can’t make judgments on another’s culture, but it makes you think when you see some people with so much while you know others have so little.

*personal photo

An American Thanksgiving in Sweden

Ah Thanksgiving.  Last year I was very lucky to be able to spend the all American holiday in true family tradition at home.  It had been a long time, at least seven years; last year was like an oasis of Thanksgivings in a sea of pseudo turkeys and hotel buffets for expatriates.  But I digress; this year is the focus of today’s blog.  I am currently in Sweden and cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for two friends (Adam and Sami) and myself.  Adam and I went to the super market close to the apartment in hopes of finding something that could resemble a turkey.  Adam is American as well and we were in serious need of some good old American comfort food, a little taste of what we were missing back home.  We trekked through the snow in the dark even though it was only 3:30; it gets dark at around 3 here this time of year.  There was no turkey to be found at the market.  The closest thing we could find was a medium sized, at best, chicken.  It was kind of a sorry looking chicken, but I was determined to cook the hell outta that bird!  We also got some French green beans and ingredients for stuffing.  I made the stuffing with Skorpor; they’re small pieces of football-shaped croutons.  I mixed them with green apple, a raisin and craisin mix, celery, carrots, onions, thyme and chicken stock.  For the chicken I coated the bird with butter and wrapped the top of it with thin slices of bacon.  I then baked the chicken at 425 F for 15 min then turned down the oven to 325 F for an hour and half.  I finished off the chicken by removing the bacon and letting it cook for another 15 min to crisp the top of the skin.  Yes, it was a very fat-free dinner…. Hehehe. 

Everything turned out great; the stuffing was savory and tart, green beans lightly sautéed to keep them crisp and the chicken was very moist and rich.  We had a bottle of light Chianti called Barone Ricasoli and a little Moet Chandon to wash it all down.  It was the best I could do under the circumstances and everyone’s stomachs were very full and very happy. 

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone and keep eating!!

On Me This Time!!

Me

Micro ball ice cream in Tokyo

Ok, so I feel its time to write a little about me.  Here are some of the standard profile comebacks:  My name is Molly, I am 33 and a professional sushi chef of over 11 years- most would say I’m pretty good at what I do.  I have worked and lived in a few different countries like Dubai, Japan, Israel, Lebanon and Argentina.  I am currently living in Stockholm, Sweden but not working.  I’m traveling to gather stories for my blog and hopefully eventually a book.  I love cooking, but the restaurant industry is something I am trying to phase out of.  It’s a damn hard business.  I’ve been in the business for many years and I used to be a partner in a restaurant in Argentina that did not do so well, but what of it- live and learn (I learned more in that time than in two years of business school!).  I have a love/hate relationship with the restaurant industry; it’s an addiction that you can’t shake.  My ego loves the customer interaction at the sushi bar, people constantly telling how fucking awesome you are all day long, but my head and body get bloody burned out.  Its like the mafia, you try to get out but it always brings you back in, I’m sure many chefs can agree…  I am currently going to school online for holistic nutrition and I would like to learn acupuncture eventually.   I do work, in Cape Cod but only during the summer season at a little restaurant in a town called Wellfleet.  The people I work for are great and I make enough money to afford me my travel expenses for the winter, I feel fortunate, its not a bad gig at all!!

At work in Dubai

I have a fairly big family; typical functioning dysfunctional American family with loads of half and stepbrothers/sisters… its great though, the more the merrier!!  I am Korean, adopted to American parents when I was 7 months old.  Never been back to Korea, although I am entertaining the idea.  But more on that at a different time….  I grew up in Minnesota, in a very musical and artistic household.  My father is a cellist and my mother a teacher of music and elementary age kids, so I was raised taking loads music lessons; art classes and some theater.  I have a huge appreciation for the arts thanks to them.  When I was a kid music lessons were painful for me, I was extremely shy and recitals were horrifyingly nightmarish.  I regret my resistance now, wish I would of stuck with it but sometimes you miss the boat on things. 

Seared scallops with a pickled plum reduction

Well that’s a little bit of me in a somewhat superficial nutshell, at least all I’m prepared to share at the moment.  I’m sure you’ll read more about me as I write on.  I will leave you with a recipe from my plethora of dishes in my head for a yummy Yellowtail ceviche, try it and leave a comment on how you like it or what you think of it!

Keep eating!!

Cooking at home

P.s. I apologize in advance for the lack of photos for the ceviche, I will try to explain everything in detail to understand my meaning.  It may be a time consuming, but it is not difficult so don’t worry!!

Yellowtail Ceviche with ginger infused rice vinegar

Serves 2- 4

½ pound Yellowtail fish, diced into bite-size pieces (1”x1”)

Ceviche marinade:

1 cup Japanese rice vinegar

¼ c  sugar

2  tbls  Japanese Yuzu juice *

1 tbls sea salt

1 clove of garlic, ground into a paste

2 large pieces of ginger, very finely grated into a pulp

½ jalapeño, finely grated like the ginger

Garnish:

½ small white onion, thinly sliced

½ cup of shredded daikon (Japanese radish)

1 tbls wasabi tobiko (wasabi flavored cavier used in sushi, green in color)

3 sprigs of daikon sprout

Method:

First thinly slice the onion and put them into a small bowl with ice water.  This will take away the strong bite of the onion that can overwhelm the ceviche.  Let them sit in the ice water for about 20 min.  After the 20 minutes, put the onions into the marinade.  Next take the daikon and shred it with a mandolin length-wise, use the smallest blade possible. Rinse them with water until the pungent smell is gone.  If you do not have a mandolin, slice the daikon the thinnest possible, length-wise, stack the slices and again slice down as thin as possible.  They should look like thick, short strands of hair. After you rinse them, keep them in a bowl with a damp paper towel over it so they do not dry out.

To make the marinade, first pour the rice vinegar into a bowl.  Add the sugar little by little and taste as you go.  You can adjust the amount of the sugar if you need, the flavor should be slightly tart and not too sweet.  After the sugar is dissolved, add the Yuzu and sea salt.  Next, ground the garlic using either an oroshii grater (a Japanese grater used to make grated daikon for sushi) or the finest side of a cheese grater, it should be like a paste.  After you add the garlic into the mixture, lightly peel the ginger with a spoon- all the flavor of the ginger in just under the skin.  Grate the ginger with the same side of the grater you used for the garlic.  This is a little bit of work but you want only the pulp without all the tough fibrous strands, they’re not too pleasant to eat.  When you finish with the ginger, do the same with the jalapeño.  You can use more jalapeño if you want it spicier; seeds are ok but take them out if you can.  Mix all together and let it sit in the chiller while you prepare the fish.

Preparing the fish:

Skin the Yellowtail using a sharp thin-bladed knife.  If there is an indented line running through the middle of the fish, cut closely along both sides of the line and throw it away.  Dice the fish into bite-size cubes about 1”x1”, then take he back of the knife and gently hit the cubes with it.  This will open the cubes up a bit and let the marinade really get into the fish.  Put the Yellowtail into the marinade while you prepare the dishes to be plated. 

Plating:

Take small bowls and put the shredded daikon on the bottom.  Gently spoon in the Yellowtail, onions and some of the marinade over the diakon.  Mound the fish a bit higher in the center of the bowl.  To garnish the ceviche, spoon the wasabi tobiko over the top of the mound of fish in the center of the bowl, letting the tobiko fall naturally down the sides.  Top it off with the daikon sprouts and serve right away!!

* Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit kind of like a cross between a lemon and lime in flavor, a bit bitter and unique.  It is used on delicate white fish or scallops, is also made into marmalade and added to hot water for a tea in Japan.

Tandil, Argentina part 1

Tandil, Argentina.  Tandil is in the southern part of the Buenos Aires Providence.  The time I spent in Tandil was amazing.  I was living in Buenos Aires at the time and wanted to get out of the city for a change of scenery, to eat some home-cooked Argentine fare.  A tattoo artist friend of mine named Diego invited me to stay at his family’s home for a week so we took off, taking one of the long-distance touring buses.  It was about a 5hour ride and to my delight the buses were actually pretty comfortable.  They gave everyone a snack of dulce de leche cookies and a ham sandwich with cheese.  The buses also offered tea or coffee and even showed a movie on small screen above the seats.  Most people in Argentina travel this way because flying is very expensive within the country.  The bus station was huge, located in downtown Buenos Aires.  There's clothing, souvenir shops and a café offering light meals and drinks.  It was much nicer than I expected.  Outside the station is a bit shady however.  There were little markets behind the station that sold everything from fake brands and underwear to electronics and cheap vacation things like beach accessories.  Beyond that, there's kind of a flavilla type neighborhood like in Brasil, home made houses made from cinder block and sheets of aluminum.  Very poor and sad to see, but a reality I saw all too often traveling in Argentina.   

Diego's mother

We arrive in Tandil by nightfall.  Tandil is a small town; it has a main street with a couple bars, a town plaza in the center but its mostly residential- wide streets and very quiet.  It's a tourist spot for the wealthy, known for its hundreds of cured meats, specialty cheeses and gauchos (cowboys).  The terrain is hilly and beyond the town limits you can find many ranches with horses.  Most people are considered middle class for the most part by Argentine standards and you don't find the homeless culture you find in Buenos Aires.  

Diego and his niece

Diego's brother picked us us from the bus station.  There was a lot of excited chatter as we drove to the house, his mother was very excited to have Diego home for a week.  Diego's family was so hospitable.  Families are especially close knit in Argentina and his mother and sister hugged Diego as if he hadn't been home in ages, tears and smiles all around, even for me!!  His niece jumped into Diego's arms and did not want to be put down, so adorable and a beautiful little girl.  The wife of his brother was still at work and we would meet her the next morning.  His house consisted of his mother, younger sister, and older brother with his wife plus their daughter.  It was a small house; the brother and his family lived in the garage remodeled into a one-bedroom apartment.  Diego and I slept on the floor in the living room, but it was comfortable and I didn’t mind one bit.  We arrived at night and Diego’s mother had his favorite dish waiting for us.  She had made a spinach and cheese torta for us.  Torta is basically a quiche with less egg and a bit creamier.  I could see why this was his favorite dish from his mother.  She was an amazing cook, the torta was light and fluffy, creamy, the crust flaky and thin. I could see why it was his favorite dish!!

The view from the summit of the park

One memorable day during my stay in Tandil Diego, his family and I took a day trip into the country.  We went to the famous Piedra Movediza, the balancing rock.  It’s a huge boulder that balances on a steep angle on a hill overlooking the countryside.  the terrain is beautiful, rolling hills, a bit rocky and very green.  We also walked around Independencia Park, a beautiful park with a huge Venetian palazzo at the entrance.  There’s a path in the park that leads to the top of a huge hill that overlooks the whole town.  The summit of the hill is decorated with a few statues and a “castle” you can walk up and with lookout tower.  We took sandwiches and soda up to the top and watched the sunset as we ate.  Sandwiches you buy from bakeries in Argentina are unique.  They are made with a very thinly sliced white bread, baked in very long loaves.  They are double stacked, layered with slices of more bread and anything from butter, cheese, ham, cucumber, egg salad, tuna salad, lettuce and tomato.  The sandwiches are cut into smaller squares from the large rectangles and packaged in brown butcher paper with string.  Very delicious and surprisingly light for the amount of bread.  As it got dark, we could see the town lit up with street lights and all the houses.  We did our best to pin point where the house was.  As it got late, we walked back down to the car and sleepily drove back to the house, tired from the tour of Tandil.  I was so grateful to Diego and his family for taking the time to show me their beautiful town.  Tandil is a great place, peaceful and has it’s own claim as a unique spot in Argentina.

*personal photos

First time in Israel part 1

I went to Israel for a month with an old boyfriend who is Israeli in my early 20’s.  It was the first time out of the country without my family and I was EXCITED.  I was going for a month and had no idea what to expect.  I’ve never been too concerned with political situations being dangerous personally, for some reason that has never really scared me off from going somewhere.  I think it’s because I like to be where things are happening, seeing first hand what people usually only read about.  I need to get the full story, see the whole picture.  Make an opinion for myself based on hearing the stories first-hand and from the people who actually live them.  Not forming my opinions via CNN or some other biased corporation.  I also knew that I liked Israeli and Middle Eastern food from eating it in The States.  There is a great little gyro/falafel place in Miami owned and run by a couple of Israeli guys and it’s pretty authentically delicious. 

So my boyfriend (hi name was Alon), his friend and I took off for Israel.  We had a 12-hour layover in Amsterdam and needless to say, we took the train into the city and partook in some of the cafes and all that they have to offer…  I have to admit I really only remember canals, prostitutes in windows, a 24 hour dance club and my boyfriend throwing up in some alley.  Come on, we were all maybe 22 and in Amsterdam for the first time!   We stumbled our way back on the train somehow and onto the plane.  For the rest of the flight we just tried to sleep, the smoking and eating we had done in the Red Light district had taken it's toll.  We all agreed we felt like wanting to jump out of the plane windows, the rest of the flight the three of us tossing and turning.  It was late evening as we arrived in Tel Aviv and I was groggy, really out of it when we landed.  When the three of us got to immigration, I got nervous.  I was in a line by myself as my two compadres were in the line for Israeli nationals; I was in the line for foreigners.  It didn’t help that the German girl in front of me got randomly taken out of the line for some more in-depth questioning of the purpose for her visit.  Israel is pretty hardcore in security.  At that time the airport was the older one, I remember it being kind of dark, soldiers everywhere with machine guns with a look of intimidation.  Somehow I passed through the questions and was allowed to enter the country even though I was so groggy and had a difficult time understanding what they were saying to me

We picked up our luggage after passing immigration; my Alon’s mother and father were there to meet us. They were so welcoming and sweet.  The mother was small with short brown curly hair, the father tall with a large frame and balding grayish hair; both wore glasses.  They made a cute couple.  We got in the car and started driving north towards Karmiel , a smaller town north of Haifa in the mountains and closer to the border of Lebanon and Syria.  My first meal in Israel was on this trip from the airport.  We stopped at a roadside open-air restaurant.  I remember having a gyro wrap with thin flat bread; the cabbage, pickle and red beet condiments were so delicious.  It was love at first bite.  My life-long love affair with Israel had begun.

I was amazed from the start with the food and was very excited by the freshness of the produce.  All vegetables seem lifeless and watered down in America compared to produce in Israel.  I remember the cucumbers having such a strong cucumber taste, it was amazing and I will never forget that.  Alon's family was Polish-Israeli; the food his mother made at home was amazing.  Most mornings we either had hummus, flat bread with an assortment of vegetables like tomato and cucumber with mint or crepes and marmalade with a sweet cream cheese or a dish called shashuka.  Shashuka is a spicy egg dish made in a deep frying pan by stewing eggs in a spicy tomato sauce, chunky with fresh chopped tomatoes along with canned dice tomatoes.  It's eaten with flat bread and so tasty, what a way to start each day!!  The tomatoes I had in Karmiel were so unique.  They were quite large and had the shape of a bulb of garlic.  They would break off into chunks when you split them with your hands much like garlic cloves.  I have never seen tomatoes like that since.  Mint is also important in Israeli cuisine.  You never get lemonade without it; it’s often an herb you eat with hummus or other dips and cold dishes with flatbread.  For dinner we would have traditional polish dishes some nights and more Middle Eastern dinners other nights.  His mother was an excellent cook, making the best Polish goulash I’ve ever had!! 

It is Jewish custom to not cook or use any electricity from Friday at sunset until Saturday sunset.  It’s Sunday to Jewish people and meant for reflection, family time and prayer.  Mothers in religious families cook Friday night, something they can eat cold the next day or something that can cook slowly over night for the next day.  My boyfriend’s family was not religious, but wanted to show me something very traditional, so one Friday night his mother prepared Hamin to take to the middle daughter’s house she shared with her husband in the country about half an hour from Karmiel and eat all together, a Saturday family dinner.  Hamin is a traditional dish that is cooked very slowly over night, usually consisting of meat (his mother made beef brisket), potatoes, barley, beans and whole eggs in the shell.  It’s spiced with turmeric and cinnamon.  We piled in the car that Saturday and headed to his middle sister’s house.  It was a beautiful drive and every once in a while you would get a glimpse of part of an ancient Roman aqua duct or some other ancient ruin.  Her house was in the country and had a dirt road driving up to the door.  It was a very old house, cool and simple.  She and her husband were artists; she a puppeteer, he a painter.  Both were very nice and laid-back.  They had a wide piece of land with rusting old farm equipment scattered here and there.  We brought in the food and started setting up for dinner it was getting late.  We sat down to eat; the Hamin was laid out on the table in the heavy cast-iron pot.  Accompanying the main dish was flat bread, a dish of plump green olives, lastly a simple salad of diced tomato, cucumber, red onion, and lemon, olive oil.  The hamin was amazing and very rich.  I couldn’t eat much of it because it was so filling.  It wasn’t the most appealing visually, it was a very dark brown and even the eggs had turned a shade of the dark color from the long slow cooking and spices.  It was a great evening, in the country with a great family enjoying a delicious meal…

*personal photos of Israel

Last night's dinner

For dinner last night I made ratatouille and with crepes.  Ratatouille is a traditional French dish of stewed vegetables mainly eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and onions.  It’s considered a provincial dish, from the region of that name and is located in the southeastern corner of France on near the Mediterranean.  Ratatouille is usually served as a side dish but can be a main course as well.  Crepes filled with ratatouille make a great main dish; light but definitely filling!!

Ratatouille:

Makes 10 portions for crepe filling (enough for yummy leftovers!)

1 medium eggplant, small dice

1 medium zucchini, small dice

6 cloves of garlic, crushed and finely chopped

3 small yellow onions, medium dice

3 medium tomatoes, peeled and medium dice

3 bell peppers (any color but I recommend using green for one of them), small dice

1 loose cup of fresh basil, chiffonade

1 loose cup of fresh flat leaf parsley

3 tablespoons olive oil

¼ c dry white wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Start by dicing the eggplant and lay them out on paper towels in a single layer.  Sprinkle lightly with salt; let them sit for about 20 min.  Next let’s peel the tomatoes.  First boil some water in a small saucepan.  On the bottom of the tomato, cut a small X with a knife and put into the boiling water for about 30 seconds or until you see the edges of the skin start to peel off.  Take the tomatoes out of the water; immediately shock the tomatoes in ice water and let sit for about a minute.  Take the tomatoes out and the skin should almost fall off, if not don’t worry, just gently peel the skin off.  After the tomatoes are peeled and diced, heat up a medium saucepan over medium heat while adding 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to the saucepan.  Add the chopped garlic, tomatoes, half the parsley and half the basil plus about a tsp of black pepper.  Let them stew while you prepare the bell peppers and onion.  Take the diced bell peppers, onion and sauté them with 1 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat until they are slightly browned.  Add them to the stewing tomatoes.  Now let’s take on the eggplant and zucchini.  Blot the eggplant with paper towel while heating up the sauté pan adding the last tablespoons of olive oil.  Next add the eggplant, zucchini and sauté them until they are slightly brown like the onions and bell peppers.   Now add them to the stewing vegetables, let them simmer over low heat for about 40 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.  After the 40 minutes, add the white wine, the rest of the basil, parsley and salt to taste, cooking another 5-7 minutes.  Lastly, strain the excess liquid from the ratatouille, put it into a small saucepan and reduce the liquid by half.  Add it back into the vegetables and enjoy!!

Crepes:

Makes 6-8 crepes

2 c flour

1 ¼ c milk

6 tbls melted butter or vegetable oil

3 eggs

Whisk ingredients together adding milk in a slow steady stream.  Mix well and set aside in the refrigerator for about 20 min.

Heat a nice non-stick pan over medium-medium low heat, melt about a teaspoon of butter on the pan and let it heat up.  When the butter starts bubbling take a small to medium ladle and pour the crepe mixture over the pan.  Quickly tip the pan in a circular motion to spread out the batter keeping it in a round shape.  When the edges start to cook, take a spatula and flip the crepe over to cook the other side for a bout 15 seconds.  Gently slide the crepe onto a plate.

Putting it all together:

Lay out the crepe gently onto a plate.  Spoon about a cup of ratatouille onto ¼ of the crepe area.  Fold the remaining crepe in half and then in half again forming a triangle. 

Another way you can plate a crepe is add more ratatouille so it covers half the area of the crepe then simply fold the remaining crepe area over the ratatouille.

I hope you enjoy this dinner idea; the crepes should be light and the ratatouille flavorful. 

P.s. Tabasco is a delicious way to spice up the dish!!

Keep eating!!

*photos by Adam McCleery

Dinner in Sweden

This is an article I wrote a couple weeks ago here in Sweden after I ate at a friend of a friend’s family home.  I want to share my experience eating in a typical Swedish household.  I think you will find as you read that it is not so different from a family dinner in The States...

Tonight we ate at my friend’s house for dinner and I was excited to see what people are eating at home in Sweden.   The apartment of my friend’s friend was neat and designed well as is all of Sweden, as it seems.  Architecture and the feel of Stockholm is very clean and neat, well designed with advanced technology much like Japan.  Japan and Sweden are very similar in this way.  The apartment was on a high floor and as we took the elevator up my stomach started the familiar rumblings of the meal to come.  As we walked in our hostess (the mother) greeted us with hugs and greetings in English.  The Swedish are very good at speaking English and you can easily get around without having to know any Swedish.  The apartment was small but spacious and the kitchen was open to the dining area and living room. There were other guests at the dinner that night, our host (the father) is a UFC fighting coach and some of his students were over watching the fight from the night before on television.  It was a merry scene and the energy was cozy and welcoming.  One of the guys was a fighter from Brazil; he did not speak much English and no Swedish.  But he seemed very nice and laughed a lot.  He was here to train and fight in Europe for the next 6 months.  He seemed to have an interesting story, being from the flavillas in Brazil I learned later from my friend.   Another guy was a Swedish fighter and two others were Turkish brothers but were Swedish born.  Both brothers are fighters, the younger one a European champion at only 16 years of age.  Our host had been a fighter himself but had dove into a pool head first years ago and broke his neck, paralyzing him.  He seemed like a funny guy with a dark sense of humor and liked to talk politics.  The host and hostess had two teenage sons that made a short silent appearance to eat separately before the rest of us, typical awkward teenage angst.  There were 3 pets in the house, a cat with a huge raccoon-like tail and two small dogs.  One looked like a Chihuahua mix with large ears and the other was a mutt that looked a bit like an Ewok.  The Chihuahua seemed to take a liking to me and sat by me for a good bit of time.  The mother said that was extraordinary since he doesn’t often like people.

As the hostess was busy in the kitchen finishing up the preparation for the meal, cutting lettuce for the salad, there was a familiar scent coming from the oven.  We had been told lasagna was on the menu and it smelled rich an appetizing.  The oven she using was small and looked like a large microwave built into the wall.  I had one similar in Japan but hers looked like a larger more expensive version of the one I had.  The kitchen spacious but little counter top and the appliances were all tiny, fitting neatly in the wall. 

As we sat watching the UFC fight I was getting pretty hungry and I started think about how popular Italian food is worldwide.  It seems everywhere you travel or live; Italian-style pasta dishes are commonplace in households.  Even in far-off places like Asia, Italian food seems to have its own rhythm somewhere in the pulse of the culinary heartbeat.  It is a fairly easy cuisine to make, usually cheap and filling; making it practical and economical for most households.  Most importantly, Italian food is delicious!

We finally sat down to eat and the food looked great.  I happen to love lasagna and I always think salad or something crisp and fresh is natural accompaniment to a hot pasta dish.  The salad was made with romaine and a type of iceberg lettuces, thinly sliced cucumber and a mild feta cheese diced.  The salad had no dressing that I could taste, but the cheese gave it its own flavor.  The beef lasagna was rich with ricotta and mozzarella cheese in the traditional Bolognese style. The pasta was tasty and had that homemade quality only a mother could produce, the sort of lasagna that you see in the Garfield the cat scarf down in the cartoon, and the salad was a nice compliment and cut the richness of the main dish.  Meat and cheese are very expensive in Sweden, meat especially this year because the grain to feed the livestock did not grow well and most of it had to be imported.  Most of us drank milk with our meal.  I am always curious about milk in other countries, I do not like milk in the States; I find it watery and to have a noticeable aftertaste.  I love rich, creamy milks and the milk I had at the dinner was rich and creamy, it did not taste like the low fat variety even though the carton said otherwise.  There was not much conversation during dinner, and what conversation there was at the table was in Swedish.  My friend translated that most of the conversation was of politics and the fight we had been watching.  I am used to these types of situations and have learned to just smile and try not to look too much like a blank chalkboard.  For desert, we had brownies that were from a frozen pack and vanilla ice cream.  Our hostess apologized for the store-bought desert, which was cute and charming of her.  There was no need to apologize however, the brownie was gooey and uber-rich, and the ice cream was light and fluffy, milky.  Most of the guys had seconds on the desert.

Moving back into the living room, we finished watching the UFC fight after dinner and quickly left after that.  I was a bit surprised to leave so quickly after eating, in the States it might be considered rude to leave so quickly, but no one seemed to mind and our hosts graciously said goodbyes and we made plans for the next time we would have dinner.  We asked our chef to make something traditionally Swedish, so I am very excited at the aspect of experiencing what is considered traditional in a Swedish home.  All in all it was a good time and glad to have it as my first "family" experience in Sweden and 

hopefully I will get into the kitchen with her next time and be able to share her recipes with everyone on this blog!!

Keep eating!!

humble introduction of a crazy cook

Cooking is my saving grace.  When everything else in my life is a turned upside down, screwed up or seemingly hopeless, the process of cooking is the only thing I can count on as being certain, concrete.  I can rely on a boiling point to always be at 212 degrees F; that a fish will tell me its freshness by how taught the meat of the body is, clarity of the eyes, color of the gills or the smell; how new the crop of rice is by the amount of dry rice that stays in my grip.  There has been little else in my life that I can say the same for.  It brings me out of my shell, a way I can express myself and share what I have to say in a unique medium that can be a luxury or a necessity but in the end is fundamentally important to life itself.  Starting with one form of an ingredient, combining that with other ingredients and transforming them into something completely different is beautiful, evolving and creative.  It continues to alter into nutrients, waste, then nutrients again for another form of life- thus circulating back to the original ingredient you started with in the kitchen only to do it all again.  How can you not see the beauty of that cycle?

My interests in food, traveling and cultures have led me to this blog.  I don’t want this to be another travel blog; talking about the same things you can see on the travel channel or food network.  I am not just a foodie tourist, I have worked and lived in most of the countries I write about.  I don’t want to review another uptight restaurant or another chef’s work.  Through my stories I want to explore my experiences as a woman traveling by herself, and more importantly what people eat at home.  Cooking stems from the simple fact that food sustains life, thus sustaining culture, society, government, philosophy, nature, everything that has the vibrations of life running through itself needs some form of food or nutrients.  I want to study how we as humans express this desire for sustenance.  What basic human need we possess and how far we dare to take it, from a simple snack in the middle of the day or a family meal to art, prestige, dysfunction, greed, political tactics, survival; all that we are as humans can be expressed through food.  What it is that makes food the tie that binds us so-to-speak and where does it all begin?  I am making the argument that everything begins at home, where society is going is based on what is going on in the homes of the people, and what is being cooked at home is an expression of that.  We are what we eat and could be how we eat it.  What people are cooking at home, how people are being brought up to think about food, how they eat as well as what they eat and how it is affecting their world and the in turn the world around them.  Every restaurant, food stall, market, street food cart can be traced back to something that was prepared somewhere down the line in a household.  It could be recent history or ancient- evolved from homes of ancestors.  If you ask almost any chef what inspires them in creating or why they stated cooking, it usually has to do with some experience or inspiration as a child in a home whether it was his home or not, positive or not so positive memories.  

 My inspiration and influence has been a combination of being adopted from Korea and my mother embracing that heritage to eating at my great aunt’s house on a farm in Iowa- where everything was made from scratch to my father making traditional Norwegian food from his ancestors.  I want to experience and learn more of what people are cooking at home, where the inspiration comes from and how that fits into their culture.  I will be writing about these travel experiences, about the countries I've been to or will be going to, the people I have met or will meet, their society and of course the food that ties it all together.  Some stories may make you laugh, some might make you cringe; and some might make you think me a crazy idiot- but in any case the life of a traveling cook is rarely boring so I hope you will be entertained and keeps you reading and more importantly eating!!