Author: zora

Back in the Saddle: Weeknight Improv Cooking

I got back from Mexico almost a month ago. My suitcase is still not unpacked. The fridge is stocked only with hummus and some moldy mushrooms. I had an anxiety dream where I was trying to keep up with someone dancing salsa in double time. Things are not going very smoothly right now.

But when I finally cooked a proper dinner for myself last night, I remembered why I like doing it. It’s therapy, plain and simple. Breathe, focus, get something accomplished. And eat something fresh and nourishing at the end.

Best of all, it was something I made up on the spot, and it turned out even better than I expected. Unlike all my other work I’m doing, which seems to inevitably involve compromised visions and not-quite-right results. I haven’t felt like a freakin’ genius in a long time, basically, and it felt good!

tagine 006What I made–a fish tagine with an Indian spice combo cribbed from Madhur Jaffrey’s eggplant recipe–is posted over at Cooking in Real Time.

I’ll be honest, I was dragging my ass into the kitchen. The podcast, and cooking at all, felt like a chore–I was so not excited. But one of my terribly demanding (well, not at all) fans had requested something tagine-y, and I figured fish was good because it cooks quickly. I was thinking Moroccan, of course, but somehow it wasn’t hitting the spot. I thought I’d do whole spices in the hot oil to begin, Indian style-y, because I sure as hell wasn’t bothering with the two-hour charmoula marinade pretty much every fish tagine recipe calls for.

And then I thought of fennel, and how good it is with fish. And I thought of the eggplant recipe, which has fennel. And suddenly my brain was working veryveryfast, and I was running to the bookshelf to double-check the eggplant recipe to see if it also uses ginger (it does) because I’d been thinking ginger too. Everything started clicking into place.

And just that quickly, I was hungry and excited about cooking and feeling like the day hadn’t been a total waste. It was like the medication kicking in.

So, check out the recipe. I think you’ll like it. Maybe it’ll bring you out of a slump too?

Aleppo Falafel

Thanks to Syrian Foodie, I am now starving. But starving in the way only a plane ticket can fix.

Syrian falafel rocks the house. No mucky tahini to make things heavy–just really tart yogurt and tons of fresh mint and tomatoes. And the really skilled sandwich makers (I assume this guy too, though he’s working so fast I can’t see) break up the falafel a little bit, so it’s in crumbly pieces in the sandwich.

And I can I just add how great it is that Syrian men seem to love the camera? And they’d better not change that movie poster before I get back to Aleppo! How else am I going to find the place?

Good Travel Reading

When I was in Mexico, I got desperate for some English reading material by the end of the month, so I plunked down US$10 for a copy of the newest issue of Dwell, which I was surprised to find in a bookstore on Cozumel.

And what a fine investment! In the back were samples from the new travel mag Afar, which I’d heard whispers of back in the spring. As soon as I got to the Miami airport, I bought myself the full issue.

It’s so refreshing to read a magazine that isn’t explicitly gunning for a particular market segment. Street food and fancy treehouses, fancy French knives and Berber villages… Check it out, if you have a chance. And you should have a chance, because it’s quarterly–just about the pace I can handle for magazines.

With Perceptive Travel, though, I’ve almost completely lost the thread since it jumped to monthly! Fortunately, I did drop in recently and catch “A Dollar and a Dime in Vietnam,” by Richard Sterling. What starts out as just general commentary on the function of small change in many countries turns into a specific story, with a specific moment, the sort of which (for me, at least) is one of the main reasons for traveling.

Even though the odd moments of kindness can happen at home (and Sterling does live in Vietnam), I suspect you’re more open to them as a traveler, when you’re coasting on guest etiquette, as opposed to resident habits. And if you’re lucky, that attitude will persist a little too, after you get back and before you’re back in your rut.

Specific to odd kindnesses of taxi drivers, I just realized that the fact that Egypt was the first place I really traveled has colored everything since. Because Cairo is a hideously polluted, overcrowded city where everyone is out to grossly overcharge you or feed you food that will make you violently ill, well, every place after has seemed positively hygienic, courteous and completely uncorrupt.

And I’m of course grossly overblowing the Cairo stereotypes, but that has a benefit too. When I returned to Cairo in 2007, after nine years’ absence, the stereotype had built up so horribly in mind that I was pleasantly surprised and touched at nearly every corner, when people were polite and not grabby and quoted me an accurate price on a bottle of water.

Still, though, no cab driver ever did what Sterling’s motorbike guy does in his story…

Home Cooking in Queens

jamies-american-roadtrip-lrgOh, wow. The Jamie Oliver episode was fantastic–and I’m not saying that because Tamara and I were in it. If anything, we were a little bit the weak link. The episode focused on immigrant culture and home-cooked food in Queens, and it made me so proud to live here, all over again.

It’s fascinating to see an outsider’s view of New York (and America in general). And it’s a very atypical picture of the city, though not at all inaccurate. The city does not look all glossy and shiny and rich; in fact, it looks downright third world.

Huge thanks to Jamie Oliver, of course, but also to his excellent production and research team, who did all the heavy lifting and dug up some amazing stories for Jamie to take part in. The Peruvian woman who runs the restaurant out of her house, the Colombian guy who feeds homeless illegal immigrants, the just-arrived noodle-making women in Flushing, and of course, Ali and the halal slaughterhouse. It makes me proud of America.

Unfortunately, you still can’t see the series in the US (unless you resort to torrents–but I didn’t tell you that). So in the meantime, can I suggest you give a big thanks for immigrant food culture near you?

For instance, here’s a great photo essay about a Liberian woman who runs a home restaurant, in today’s NY Times. Love it so much!

Oh, and you can also read an interview with Tamara and me here, and see Jamie dance like a goof here. (I never thought of the Village People as being an American archetype until now!)

What Guidebook Writers Live For

I’m in the middle of finishing a guidebook update now. There’s this tricky business of writing for your reader (who uses the book) vs. writing for your editor (who may hire you again).

If you think too much of impressing your editor, you can start making goofy choices–including a restaurant listing because the review you wrote was clever, and not because the food was great, for instance. Or doing slash-and-burn cutting to meet your deadline, instead of pruning words out , so you don’t lose coverage of a cool little village.

And, I’ll be honest, it’s my editors who most often dole out the compliments. As for the readers, I seldom hear from them–it’s like throwing the book into space.

Sooo, this is all leading up to an absolutely wonderful email I received yesterday. And just the day before, I’d been bemoaning how my guidebooks for Moon don’t sell much, and are a bit too much of a labor of love. This email makes it all worth it:

Zora – I just wanted to say thanks for writing the Moon Handbook on Santa Fe, Taos & Albuquerque. It was my Bible during our trip to Santa Fe and Taos. I liked your style of writing like when you described the hippies in “recent history” as those who “fantasized about getting back to the land but had no clue how to do it.”

I don’t always follow guide books to the ‘t’ but your recommendations were so good there didn’t seem to be a reason to stray from the ease of having you be our guide.

Thanks again, great job! What a wonderful place Santa Fe is…

So if you like a guidebook–tell the author! They will love you forever, guaranteed. Also, doesn’t hurt to write an Amazon review too…

Fresh Meat: Jamie at the Slaughterhouse

A-16 tasty murder pcmSo, as of this moment, I still have not seen my appearance on Jamie Oliver’s show about the US. But now I have seen a couple of clips from it, thanks to Eat Me Daily.

And here’s the post about it.

“Scary inner workings” of the halal butcher? Maybe I’m in too deep, and way too used to going there, but…it’s not that scary.

Perhaps it is not the gleaming vision of stainless steel and bright white tile in which people fantasize their meat is being slaughtered. But nowhere is. And certainly not a Midwestern meat packer that supplies your supermarket.

No, it is not photogenic. But it is not a filthy place. And I (and thousands of others) have happily bought meat there and served it to other people. And they’ve all said, “Mmmm, delicious! This chicken tastes so good!” And they didn’t die.

I wonder if Raphael’s disgust at watching this clip came not so much from the seemingly unsanitary setting, but from the proximity of live animals to dead ones. This is not something we see often in the US. Only in the last decade or so have food magazines begun to show live, gamboling lambs on one page, then a plated rack of lamb on the next–and that was a huge, contentious step when Saveur took it.

And it’s not like I am naturally all tough and jaded and carnivorous. The first time I bought a chicken there, in 2002 or so, I had to say, “Can I do this?” to myself. And still every time I go to that butcher, I have a momentary twinge.

But if I’m going to continue to eat meat, I figure it’s the honest, upfront thing to do: look that animal in the eye. And then go home and cook every last scrap of it into something really delicious. And serve it to people you love.

Anyone curious about this place? I am happy to answer any questions, or even take people there on a tour. Seriously, I love it, and I think it’s one of the best sources of well-taken-care-of meat in the city.

Link Love: Cheap Food and Travel

Cheapness and creativity converge in two great posts I just read:

Conner’s nitty-gritty on substitutions required for cooking in Cuba reminds me of every expat kitchen I’ve kept and visited. None quite so rough as Conner’s situation, though Cairo required a certain savoir faire. That’s where I foraged for basil in vacant lots. (I just made that pasta, what I call Cairo Noodles, again a couple of months ago–creamy cheese, basil, tomatoes, garlic and loads of olive oil. It stood the test of time, even though I didn’t have the signature buffalo-milk ‘feta’ from the Parmalat box.)

I would love to see a photo or video survey of expat kitchens all over the world, where treasured ingredient X is always squirreled away in the cupboard, and getting ingredient Y calls for a party. I imagine people giving little tours of their kitchens and pointing out all the treats and various little bounties and clever workarounds.

Meanwhile, over at the Frugal Traveler blog on nytimes.com, Matt Gross interviews Lauren Weber about her new book and the virtues of cheapness. The first answer is the most concise reason I’ve ever heard for being generally cheap (and I’m always looking for justifications, as I often need to push back a lot here in NYC, the city where everyone pretends to be wealthy).

And I like her point about how travel becomes boring if money is no object. Whenever I’m visiting fancy resorts for work, I think of that. Sure, it’s fun to go hang out there for a night or two, and imagine that lifestyle. But if I really lived it? Totally boring. Challenge and constraints are good, both in cooking and travel. There’s a whole damn world out there to visit and eat, and frankly I don’t trust my own taste/instinct entirely to take me into the best stuff. Sometimes I need to be forced there, whether it’s due to a shortage of basil or an uncooperative train.

And then, well, this is just funny. Oh, and this, about accents. Love the Pakistan clip at the end. Hooray for Bajira, the new Blanquinou!

Jamie’s American Road Trip

Tamara and I are going to be on the New York episode of this show, to air in Britain September 15. Spread the word to your mates across the pond!

And we haven’t seen the final cut of what we taped, so who knows how we come across? All I’ve been told is that I get to say, “I fucking hate restaurants.” Which means this will never air in the US, alas.

In the meantime, I’m trying to track down the earlier episodes, to see what the show is looking like. Eat Me Daily has a clip from the Wyoming episode that aired this week. Hilarious. I think we’re in good hands…

Sripraphai Database

What?! A YEAR has passed since I last ate at Sripraphai? Where is my life going? Soon I will be dead.

Well, anyway, I stuffed the panic back down inside and soldiered on to update the incredibly fruitless Sripraphai Database.

Fruitless not only because I will of course be dead soon, but also because they changed the menu, and all the numbers on it! My world is unraveling before my eyes.