From time to time I’ve gotten comments on my write ups about the different cuisines I have explored. Mostly they are complimentary, but sometimes people are very offended at what I’ve written and want to set me straight. For example, I got a lot of hate mail regarding my write up of Appalachian cuisine – apparently a newspaper columnist there organized a letter writing campaign to let me know how offended they were at my thoughts. My Assyrian menu has also generated some mail from Assyrians who tell me that I did it all wrong. They’ve promised to send me recipes so I can cook a real Assyrian meal, but so far I haven’t gotten any.
But no individual recipe has received more comments than my recipe for coucou, a cornmeal dish eaten throghout the Caribbean. Apparently I did it all wrong. Here is the last e-mail I’ve gotten on the subject.
“Of course you, probably a white woman, would find the dish bland but if you were a native you would understand that cou-cou is not a stand alone dish. The national dish of Barbados is “cou-cou and flying fish” and like mash potatoes and gravy, the flavor of the cou-cou comes from the gravy of the fish. If you do not have flying fish, you could use any other steamed fish, liver, etc. anything that makes a good gravy.
If the picture on your website is the result of what you made no wonder it was bland cause it looks like poop which means you probably made it wrong.
Happy recipe hunting but next time maybe you should stick to hamburgers and french fries.”
Author: marga (Page 92 of 112)
Today I took the girls to Habitot. My plan was to stop by Mel’s Drive-Inn which is right next to Habitot but Mika wanted pizza, so we went to the pizza place right next to Mel’s. They’d changed it since our last visit, they put the counter against the outside door and now you are not allowed to eat inside the restaurant, but my plan was to take the slices down to Habitot and eat in their lunch room anyway.
The pizza was OK. Even though it was around lunch time, it was clear that it’d been sitting under the heatlamp for a while, the cheese was all solid and uniform rather than gooey. It didn’t have that alcoholic-like taste that I had enjoyed in their pizza in the past, I’m not sure if that was because it wasn’t fresh.
The new restaurant (is it new?) doesn’t seem to have a name. The only sign I saw just said “pizza”. I can’t imagine it’ll last long – though the pizza is fairly affordable at $2.50 for a cheese slice – I don’t think the Shattuck traffic is eat-as-you-walk traffic as much as the Telegraph traffic. Personally, I don’t think I’ll try it again.
for this week is FREEDEL3
(one more flyer into the recycling bin)
I just found an ad for the Crossroads World Market in Hayward. I want to throw the ad away, but I want to make sure I remember the information so I can go check it out sometime. It sells Greek and European delicacies and I definitely need to go to check it out.
Crossroads World Market
230 Jackson St. (at Soto next to DMV)
Hayward
510.582.2231
M-Sa 9-7, Su 10-5
I just tried Barilla Plus Spaghetti, from the new pasta line from Italian pastamaker Barilla. It was surprisingly good. It’s a little bit darker (and the spaghettis seemed cut a little thinner) than regular Barilla pasta, but it tasted pretty much the same. That’s not too surprising as its main ingredient is still semolina – but what makes this pasta special is that the semolina is mixed in with a mix of ground lentils, chick peas, oats, spelt, barley and flaxseeds) which give the pasta extra fiber and protein (4g of fiber and 10g of protein per 2 oz portion). The flaxseeds also give it a lot of omega3. The pasta still has a lot of carbs (38g) and calories (200), but it does seem a healthier alternative to regular pasta. For me it’s particularly enticing as Mika doesn’t like sauce on her pasta, so when she eats it she has it plain – which doesn’t do much for balanced nutrition.
Anyway, I think it was about 2.50 at Safeway for a 1lb box – expensive but I think worth it. I’ll definitely continue buying it.
Saturday night we had our friends Aamani and Kavin over for dinner. Kavin is a vegetarian and, of course, I wanted to make a menu that would be appealing to him. I wanted to integrate the dinner with my international cooking project but, alas, there are not many cuisines that are vegetarian friendly. I consulted my friend Regina, a semi-vegetarian herself, and she suggested Indian, Ethiopian or Mediterranean food. Indeed, she said I could make a vegetable couscous. And that’s when lightening struck – couscous, North Africa, Berbers. As I am working (still) on the “b’s” this seemed providencial. As it was, I did not have Berber cuisine in my list of cuisines to cook – and even today I’m not sure if there is such a thing as Berber cuisine distinct from North African cuisine – but it was easy enough to add it. After some time searching for recipes online I found enough to make a whole menu.
The food was all delicious, Aamani and Kavin were very impressed and I have a couple of new recipes to incorporate into my repertoire.
You can find my Berber menu at http://www.marga.org/food/int/berber/
Trader Joe’s frozen pad thai is surprisingly good, it’s sweet and spicy, with nice chunks of chicken. The noodles are a tad too soft (and I like soft noodles) but all in all it’s one of the better frozen entries I’ve had.
During my last trip to Trader Joe’s I stocked up on bottled and frozen items. I tried the Trader Joe’s korma simmering sauce. It didn’t taste at all like a korma, it wasn’t creamy, it was sort of spicy and quite acidic, in other words, it tasted just like their curry sauce. I wouldn’t buy it again.
I also got the frozen nan bread. At $2 for 4 pieces it’s kind of expensive, but I think worth it. In all it’s pretty good, it tastes just like the nan bread from a good Indian restaurant, it’s light and fluffy. Plus as you cook it yourself it’s also quite warm when you get it. The only minus is taht you have to preheat the oven for 10 minutes before cooking it, though I’ve done it for less time in my toaster oven.
Finally, I got a bowl of tortellini with pesto sauce – not worth it. The tortellini themselves were good, nice al-dente consistency, yummy cheese filling, but the sauce was completely tasteless. They were actually better without the sauce.
Today we went to the Greek Festival at the St. Nicholas Church in San Jose. It was a smallish affair, just occupying the grounds of the church (but it’s a large church). There was greek music and dancing, a couple of bounce houses, a few stands selling Greek things and, of course, food, tons of it. It’s clear that most of the people go to the festival for the food – there was a deli and a bakery selling stuff to take home, a loooong stand selling gyros, souvlakia, sausages and other grilled specialties, another one selling mousaka, pastitsio and tyropitas in addition to other stuff, some of which you could also get inside the main dining hall, and Kokkari had a stand selling grilled lamb chops. There was also a “cafe” inside offering Greek sweets and Greek coffee. As you can imagine it smelled wonderful.
We tried hard to taste as much food as we could, but there were only three of us. We had the souvlakia ($5)- a skewer with thick pieces of marinated pork. It was very good though the pork was a bit tough – probably because of how lean pork is in the US. When I went to Greece many, many years ago I subsisted on souvlaki pitas (fat pitas smeared with tzaziki and filled with meat and french fries), but I could have sworn the meat was beef or lamb, not pork. In any case, we liked it. We liked the Greek sausage ($4) in a pita smeared with tzaziki even more – we’ll have to look for those sausages, they were spicy, but not too much, and so flavorful.
Later we had the pastitsio ($4) and a baked chicken ($4) with a lemony marinade. Both were quite good, even if the chicken was so dried. All the food left us with the question, if Greek grandmothers can cook so well in such large quantities for the church, how come our local Greek restaurant, Luke’s Grill can’t?
I don’t tend to like baklava ($2) but a taste proved that this one was of superior quality, though still too sweet and syrupy for my taste. A cookie dusted with powder sugar ($1) that I got for Mika wasn’t that good, mostly tasteless.
Still, I’m sold, I’ll definitely be going to their festival next year and I’ll keep my eye open for other Greek festivals closer by.
Yesterday we went to the California Academy of Science and had lunch (well, I had lunch) at the Grow Cafe there. There seems to be a trend now to have high-quality eateries at museums and I, for one, couldn’t be happier. Following that trend the Grow Cafe serves gourmet sandwiches (though all with deli meats, no fresh chicken or beef here) and salads.
I had the Roast Beef oven toasted sandwich ($6.95) which came with gorgonzola, balsamic roasted onions and sun-dried tomato spread. It was very good, I really liked the pungent taste of the cheese sneaking into the sweetness of the onions. It was also a nicely-size sandwich. I’d order it again.
I had a large fountain coke which was flat and not very large and too expensive at $2.
The space for the cafe is small, but we managed to maneuver two double strollers.
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