This recipe was printed on the back of my bag of frozen strawberries.
Let’s see … to make one strawberry smoothie you’ll need one cup of strawberries, one banana and ONE STRAWBERRY SMOOTHIE.
Gah!
Month of fun: Day 4
September 4, 2011Where’s the very best place to spend Labor Day Weekend? Plopped down on a beach chair at Manhattan Beach, surrounded by your best friends, with a can of champagne in hand.
The perfect summer day was capped off with a visit to Cupcakes Couture, a fancy, pretty-in-pink bakery that recently won “Cupcake Wars.”
Here’s the gorgeous Lime in the Coconut, one of the winning flavors from the show.
And it’s hard to tell from this photo, but this Sunday Mimosa cupcake was such a piece of art. It’s champagne cake filled with blood orange curd topped with a mascarpone citrus frosting, garnished with blood orange pearls. It was approximately the size of someone’s hand, with towers of sparkly icing.
BONUS FUN! My friend Maria recently moved from the desert to the beach, because she has more surf in her blood than sand. This was our first chance to really catch up since I returned from my trip, so we hugged, dished, ate pizza, took a nighttime walk on the pier. It was fantastic.
EXTRA BONUS FUN! Seeing Maria’s gorgeous children!
Hot potato
June 5, 2011There are five things you need to know about Potato Spicky.
1. Spicky is a potato tube. It springs forth from a potato head.
- Mr. Potato’s final gift to the world.
2. Spicky is fun to eat while sitting at a computer, buying a dress and driving a car/piloting a biplane.
- Whee! Spicky-tastic!
3. Spicky is non fried.
- Fried? Non!
4. Spicky appears to be vegan.
- I don’t see any pork here.
5. Spicky is my favorite Thai snack food.
Vietnamese home cooking
May 9, 2011Here’s the great thing about Vietnam.
You walk into a cafe. And I use the term “cafe” loosely, because it’s actually just the home of a random person with enough initiative to make a sign and write a menu.
Note granny on the couch watching Asian game shows. You might also be able to make out the kid on Facebook behind the beaded curtain. The motorbikes in the living room are kinda standard around here.
- It’s a family affair.
At this “cafe,” you skeptically order a bowl of tofu pho. And when it arrives, all peppery and slurpy and delicious, it’s one of the best meals of your life.
- Tofu pho. (Topho?)
Best of all, it’s less than $1.
Ethiopia’s daily grind
March 1, 2011Thomas was someone I met on the street — an Ethiopian man who was so kind, I was certain he had an ulterior motive.
But if there was a sinister side to Thomas, it never emerged. Instead, he was just incredibly nice to my friends and me. He showed us around town. He took us to a famous restaurant for authentic Ethiopian food. He helped us navigate the minibus system throughout town. He negotiated a price for our bus tickets down south. And in a whopping show of hospitality, he invited us back to his cousin’s house for the coffee ceremony.
After all, Ethiopia is the place where coffee was born, and this is the place that does it best.
The coffee ceremony takes place every afternoon in just about every home, restaurant and cafe in the country. This is the main social event of the day.
First, long wisps of fragrant grass are spread across the floor. Hot coals are fanned with a piece of cardboard. A round metal pan is placed on top of the coals, and fresh coffee beans sizzle and pop as they roast.
When the beans are ebony black and shiny with aromatic oils, they are ground into a fine powder using a mortar and pestle.
Meanwhile, a kettle of water has come to a rolling boil over a squatty pot of coals. The grounds are combined with the hot water inside a black, clay pot, where the brew soaks and steeps for several minutes. When the coffee is complete, it is poured into espresso-sized china cups.
After the first round, the pot with the coffee grounds is refilled with more hot water. After the grounds steep for several more minutes, a second round of coffee is passed around.
Then there is a third round, completing the ceremony.
Really, it’s just about as far from instant coffee as you can get.
In contrast, my typical coffee ceremony involves me sleepy-eyedand grumpy, spilling grounds all over the kitchen counter and shouting “@#$%!!” when the Mr. Coffee drip machine takes too damn long.
I prefer it the Ethiopian way. It’s a slow process, but it is satisfying. As the coffee is prepared, there is time for conversation. The coffee is shared and enjoyed. The taste is richer, evoking chocolate and caramel.
It is coffee the way it was meant to be savored. It is a ceremony.
Beyond the coffee ceremony, the regular Ethiopian brews and the soy macchiatos (yes, soy!) are reason enough to visit this country. Check out this gorgeous coffee.
