Gold Country Travels and Eats: A Birthday Feast

Gold Country Travels and Eats: A Birthday Feast with a Four-Tooth Minimum

California is absolutely close to everything. From 50-foot swells on the coast (Maverick’s of recent bone-crushing mini-Tsunami fame) to 7800 feet of powder and a cornice slicker than greased owl shit (Kirkwood, the Ice Master), one can experience both in the same day if you plan your travels right. Jackson, Ca. exists in between both extremes, leaning a little closer to the mountains.

We are lucky to know a couple friends who own a nice little bungalow in Jackson. Jackson is a historic Gold Rush town with a rich cowboy and Native American history to back it up. It has lots of un-reinforced masonry in the form of old brick buildings from the 1800’s with fading paint banners right on the soft edged bricks boasting “Chicken – Steak- Rib Dinners!” and a myriad of antique stores all selling the same pink and gray Franciscan 8-piece dish set. Funny thing is, my mom has that dish set too and she is not parting with it.

Fat Freddie’s Hot Doggery jostles cheek by jowl with a crystal-fossil shop, and several foo-foo boutiques (Pronounced Boo-ti-cues by the local wags). Fat Freddie has a penguin mascot on the sign and the interior is decorated with all sorts of penguin memorabilia. I have yet to see a penguin in Jackson, but I seem to remember that the owner's daughter has a "thing" for penguins. The fellow behind the bar is a hard-bitten and hard-biting local in his 70s who says he can still jump over the bar and chase down a deadbeat bill shirker. He dared us to walk out on our bill so he could demonstrate. We politely paid and left. The hotdogs were decent, but certainly not worth fighting over.

Good food in the town of Jackson is hit or miss, mostly miss if you give in and frequent the chain and fast food restaurants. If you land at Swingle’s Meat Market, and are a serious carnivore, you’ll be a happy soul. Swingle’s has steaming chafing dishes of that day’s special meat or sausage brewing. Browsing shoppers can get a pretty good protein hit just sampling sausage or tender tri-tip, one toothpick poke at a time. Like the pusher on the corner said, “the first one is free…..” Garlic chicken sausage, or pesto pork or whatever, it is all good.

Swingle’s does have some of the best steak I have ever cooked, and a mix of interesting game meats too. They also have the heads of many exotic African animals mounted on the wall and staring over the meat counter with liquid, life-like eyes. They seem to beseech, “Help me! My body has been grilled and eaten and my head has to hang out here and look at the hungry pink faces of two-legged carnivores all day!” That creeps me out.

Zebras, wildebeasts, duikers, antelope – I would like to see those animals alive rather than staring reproachfully at me over the meat counter. Of course I thought the male meat master and shop owner was responsible for all these safari trophies, but a local told me his wife killed most of them. Now THAT’s a wife to make a country boy proud! She’s not going to flinch when the bear challenges her for the Hefty bag late at night. She’ll pull out her sawed off shotgun and it’s BOOM, lights out, Boo-Boo.

Pine Grove is a little pissant town 10 miles north towards the mountains and it boasts a huge old-fashioned Italian restaurant called Giannini’s’s. We decided to have a multi- course Italian meal there for my birthday Après ski.

Giannini’s’s is a huge, historic hulking house of a place right off of Hwy 88. It is cave-dark inside with glowing red vinyl booths and sticky plastic red tablecloths. Red is the color old-fashioned restaurants always used to be to inspire hunger. It reminds me of countless diners and fish restaurants of my youth and it tweaks me to order a fried seafood platter or a grilled cheese with pickles.

Mr. Giannini was apparently Mr. California, at some point in his career before he started slinging garlic-infused hash. The walls are adorned with signed photos of him posing with various town luminaries and other celebrities. In most of the pictures he is wearing a shirt several sizes too small or is full on shirtless, muscles bulging aggressively, his long lupine face grinning out into the blare of a flash. He is unabashedly handsome and the many pictures speak to the success of his restaurant. Perhaps people were afraid NOT to eat there at some point in his muscular career.

“Try the canolli if you know what’s good for yous!” I can hear him saying, but I digress.

Giananni’s offers both “light” and “Deluxe” Italian dinners. A light dinner will have salad, soup, bread and an entrée guaranteed to drop anchor on your innards. The deluxe dinner includes a “cheeseboard”, a wooden cutting board slathered with a lava flow of polenta, tomato sauce and cheese. Diners scoop this up with chunks of hot bread and apply it directly to their hips. It is delish, but hardly leaves room for the quarter of cow, or the metric ton of steaming pasta to follow. The “Deluxe” also includes dessert, to be applied to other weight-bearing parts of your anatomy.

Because I am officially on a diet, we opted for the “light” Italian dinner. The salads are fresh and served with fresh-made Italian dressing, which is basically celery, peppers, garlic and garbanzo beans chopped up into oil and vinegar. It is a chunky dressing and is quite tart and heavenly. Soup that night was a plain brothy lentil, VERY salty, but savory. In times past, we got some odd soup brewed up from the pan juices of too many wild beasts with a few carrots thrown in for ballast. Not their finest effort, that.

The lentil soup was passable, but the lentils were a little undercooked and potentially packed a high fart-factor. It arrived in a huge (Fransciscan) bowl with enough soup for three bowls each. We eschewed second helpings both to save room and to lessen the afterburner effect.

We ate raviolis and tortellini as our entrees. They served us about a bucket of each with a heavenly, slow-cooked meat and savory tomato sauce that could only have been fresh-cooked and reduced from real fresh tomatoes. This is definitely their forte. They are the Gold Country Meat Sauce kings! Their pasta was tender, stuffed with fresh ingredients and truly a worthy vehicle for the sauce.

We had good intentions of eating half and taking some home, but the addictive sauce won out and we polished our plates.

Desserts are classic Italian for the most part: Spumoni, Zabaglione for two or MORE. I failed to see tiramisu on the menu that night, but I am sure it is a frequent visitor.

The friendly and garrulous waitress extolled the virtues of the special “Mudpie” dessert. We don’t do Mudpie. Period. We might order nice fresh slice of flourless chocolate cake maybe, or a crème brulee, or a heavenly custard but no Mudpie. Mudpie is a redneck dessert and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Even though I could have played the birthday card and probably scored a free piece, no Mudpie for me.

Just to be fair, I’ll finish this treatise off with a charming redneck recipe for RV Mudpie and you see what you think. No hard feelings, but no Mudpie for me. I don’t eat mud with my pie.

I did have a latte, but it was an effort. Ordering a “skinny” latte in this Old Family style Italian restaurant was like inviting the anti Christ to the all mighty altar of Frank Sinatra (which you can experience at the Beppo’s chain Italian family -style eatery ANYTIME, and even leave offerings – but I digress).

I heard the proprietress and the waitress scurrying around saying “Skim milk? We NEVER have any stinking skim milk!” I acquiesced and said any milk would do, but I was punished with weak coffee, thin milk and no sign of a crema.

A complimentary ride out on a hand truck would have been a nice perk, but alas, we had to walk our own lardasses back to the car. An entire day of skiing hard was negated by one depth charge birthday dinner. Happy birthday to MEEEEEE.

RV Mudpie

This is a dessert to make while camping ,when you don’t feel complicated, or have no one to impress and your guests are tolerant. It requires some ingenuity, but little skill or finesse. The better the ingredients you use, the better it will be. Or use cheap ingredients and serve it up to your four-tooth minimum friends.

9 x 13 cake pan, lightly buttered (greased)

10-12 ice cream sandwiches

6-8 Heath toffee bars

Marshmallow goo topping

Hot fudge topping or Hershey’s syrup in a squeeze bottle or both

Canned whipped cream topping or coolwhip, softened

Nuts – crushed peanuts, almonds or walnuts – your choice. Or make it vasectomy style and have NO nuts

Take the ice cream sandwiches, unwrap them and lay them out symmetrically in the cake pan. Cut the extras to fit to cover the entire pan.

Crush the Heath bars in a plastic bag and lay down a layer on top of the ice cream sandwiches. Pour whatever goop you like over the heath bars. Sprinkle a layer of chopped nuts. Slather on more topping – fudge or marshmallow. Spray entire thing with canned whip cream, or dump on the softened Coolwhip and spread it around. Top with nuts if desired. Heat some hot fudge, let it drip through fork tines and decorate like Martha Stewart. If you really want to dude it up, bust out the maraschino cherries and place them symmetrically all around the top, or be a minimalist and use one.

Freeze it a little, if you have a freezer, otherwise turn it loose at the campsite and start shoveling it into bowls. This dessert goes over really well with big scout troop parties and any group of people who have been smoking doobies all day.

Bon apetit! (I’ll bet Julia Child’s is rolling over in her grave on this one – or passing the roach)

Cajun Chronicles of California: South meets West

Cajun Chronicles of California: South meets West Gumbo and other tales.

I am a Louisiana girl. There I actually said it and admitted to it. Once a year around Mardis Gras, I am willing to do that. I knew I needed to live in trendy and liberal California by the time I was 12, or about the time the Catholic Church got tired of my questions and excommunicated me. But no matter. You can take the girl out of the south, but you can’t take the south out of the girl. I am proud of my southern cooking, and I am proud to know Cajun folk who have taught me a thing or two about the value of a well-seasoned black iron skillet and the patience it takes to make a heavenly brown roux. Besides, you have to understand that Louisiana and SOUTH Louisiana are really two different states, almost two different countries.

Every year around this time, I celebrate Mardis Gras, my birthday and my husband’s birthday with a huge authentic gumbo fest. I make seafood file gumbo, which is vegetarian based, and chicken andouille sausage bacon gumbo for the carnivores. This has become a tradition over the past 12 years or so, and at some point in January people are harass me for a definitive date so they can calendar it, punch it into the blackberry, Iphone it, put it in Outlook, write it on a post-it, tattoo it on their hand or do whatever they need to do to stay organized and not miss a great party.

Not only is this a traditional Cajun food fest, it is a White Elephant gift exchange just for fun. This allows people to clear out the flotsam and jetsam of Christmas crap their clueless friends and relatives have dumped on them during Christmas 2009. Or it allows them the excuse to go out and purchase something off the wall, totally filthy or bizarre. But I digress.

I want to discuss the value of South Louisiana church lady cookbooks. In 2002, I asked my friend N. to write down her family recipes as a wedding present for me. She came up with two small town church lady-published cookbooks as well as a handful of hand-written recipes picked from her 90-year-old grandmother’s gray curly head.

In the St Peter’s Altar Society Cookbook, Every other contributing cook has one of her family names and there is so much inter-marriage and so many related cousins it makes my head spin. I spent some quality time jotting family anecdotes by several of the recipes.

N. is easily related to 2/3 of the entrants by blood or marriage, or by incident. Everyone in Bordelonville is way less than 6 degrees of separation from each other.

Three recipes for both banana and bread pudding, three for pralines, two recipes for Te Gateau cookies. These ladies are competitive. Where else will one find Okra roll ups and red cinnamon cucumber pickle rings?

I noticed the Church lady committee members got more than one recipe each in the book. Closer to God than thee and perhaps sleeping with the publisher! Mon Dieu!

I expected to find good wholesome ingredients in those church recipes and was amazed to see…..PET milk and Velveeta cheese food as a primary ingredient for many sauces! Holy Merlitons! My heart hurts just thinking about it, both emotionally and physically. “One can of PET milk, melt in 1 pound of Velveeta in cut into cubes and stir until smooth…..” Oh my. I know it would taste great but give me Chez Paul’s cream sauce with butter if I am going to have a coronary. Tony Chachere’s Cajun seasoning is a mainstay too, and original Tobasco sauce. None of this green tomatillo or Chipotle flavor crap. Give me that original pepper taste from New Iberia, Please.

Glorified potatoes! (AKA get into heaven with a covered dish)

Add the ½ pound of Velveeta, ½ cup margarine, real bacon bits, ½ cup sour cream, chives, dash of Tobasco and Tony Chachere’s and Sacre Bleu! It sho be hard to get up them stairs.

(Thank you Dardene and just kidding. You know we’ll eat them up and love them.)

Glorified Gumbo

N’s parents favor a dark brown watery roux with sausage and chicken, poured over a liberal bowl of rice. I always liked the taste of their kitchen. My dad still makes “Hamburgers ala Stanley” with Tony Chachere’s and soy sauce. That is a burger that bites back.

In spite of me attempting to get adopted into the Cajun kitchen down the street, my mom has always used the Better Homes and Gardens recipe for Creole gumbo, which is a tomato –based variety. My mom and I both make thick stewy gumbos rather than the watery brothy kind favored in the deep south. A thick stew doesn’t always set well in hot weather.

I diverge from the BHG recipe, but still make my chicken gumbo tomato-based with andouille sausage. Being the health conscious person I am, I have seriously cut down on the grease and I often just bait the pot with one or two andouilles and fry up diced turkey kielbasa or chicken sausage to add some meat impact to the sauce.

Andouille is such a distinct hot flavor, one can have just a little and it informs any other lower fat sausage you choose to use.

I do fry a pound of bacon and use the grease to fry everything – just because bacon is righteous. It doesn’t take all that much bacon grease to make a gumbo savory.

Even when I am making my “vegetarian” seafood gumbo, I sometimes still fry the vegetables in a pan that has recently known bacon. Trust me, they are better for it, both the vegetarians and the vegetables, whether they realize it or not.

The triumphant trio: celery, red/yellow bells, onions – all get fried in a black seasoned iron skillet informed with bacon.

I don’t like green bell peppers and I think they overpower the gumbo and make it bitter, so I eschew them. I feel the same way about oregano, which is a common spice in Cajun mixes, and I don’t like Bay leaf either. I feel like all these spices can get out of hand and hide the simple taste of all the other fresh ingredients.

I do use some of my Cajun seasoning while softening these veggies. I avoid traditional Tony Chachere’s because I don’t want that much salt, but I occasionally will use salt-free Tony’s. I am a big fan of Andy Roo’s salt free stuff, which I originally bought in the street Market in New Orleans. Back in the day (10 years ago? 18?) you could get it in an unmarked plastic bag but it kicked ass all the same. Now you can buy it online. AndyRoo.com no doubt.

I have also been making my own Cajun spice for a number of years. When I am feeling generous, I package it up in little bottles and give it as gifts to my party guests. I call it “Hoochie Cootchie Hot stuff” or “Hootch” for short. I sprinkle this over the veggies, and onto any sausage I might be frying up, then I’ll fry my raw chicken pieces in that pan with the bacon fat, sausage grease and veggies. I could give you the spice recipe but then I’d have to kill you.

I like a mix of thighs and breasts, but if you are feeling guilty, skinless chopped breast meat is the healthiest choice. Once I have fried up a couple pounds of bacon, I’m less conservative about fat and throw caution to the wind. After all in parts of the south, a third ass cheek is actually a prized possession. I crumble a little of that bacon into the soup too after the fact. Bacon is righteous!

I add cans of tomato sauce, paste and chopped fresh or canned tomatoes depending on my mood and supplies. If I am using fresh chopped tomato, I sauté the tomato in my ever-ready bacon pan. Do you see a theme forming here? Bacon bacon bacon!

I like to make my own chicken broth too, which entails taking the bones, skin, any leftovers and fat from any chicken dinner and boiling hell out of it, cooling it, skimming off the solids and freezing it. I usually always have some in my freezer, and I thaw it near the stove to add as liquid after I have browned my chicken, sausage and such. It is super easy to make and tastes about 100 percent better than the old stuff that comes in a can or box. Try it and your soups will thank you.

I dump all of these goodies into a large gumbo pot (Mine is 16 quarts large) and let it simmer while I make my roux. I will usually throw in my okra at that point too. I like fresh okra when I can get it, but I am not averse to frozen sliced okra. It tastes fine and adds the right amount of slime to make the “gum” in gumbo actualize. Okra makes some folks’ hands itch when processed fresh. Wear gloves or deal with it.

The roux is the piece de resistance of the soup. Seasoned flour, whisked into cold water, slowly poured into hot grease and stirred furiously to keep it smooth, then cooked to whatever shade of brown tickles your fancy. I find my roux takes 15-20 minutes to make. My dad has always had the impression that one cooks a roux lovingly all day long. Utter nonsense that, but it is a romantic thought.

I like a mahogany roux but others prefer a more savory burnt flavor and go for walnut hue. Once the roux is the right color and consistency, I pour it into the huge pot, let the whole soup simmer for 20 or 30 minutes or so, cool it overnight and serve it the next day. This allows the flavors to marry instead of just having a one-night stand.

I do the same steps for a seafood gumbo, except I will thicken the broth with cans of white crabmeat and I will boil in white fish fillets to make a fish based broth. I won’t add the fresh seafood until the next day 30 minutes before I am about the serve the dish, so all fresh fish, crab ,shrimp, and squid go in at the last minute to keep all the little sea creatures from turning into rubber bands. If you like living dangerously, throw in some fresh oysters too, especially if it is the right time of year and you trust your source. I eschew the tomato and use file spice instead in seafood gumbo.

This is finely ground sassafras leaves and it has an earthy flavor that marries well with the seafood and turns the soup gray green. Zatarain’s is a fine brand for this and for some other Cajun spices, like crab boil.

Serve over rice and experience a little piece of southern heaven!

Now, I have quite a collection of hot sauces that have come my way over the years. I have the whole collection of Tobascos : traditional pepper, Chipotle (which I hate) the garlic tobasco I am most partial to and the mild green tomatillo type sauce. I also have habanero tobasco for the more daring, and some hotter than the hinges of hell scotch bonnet and piquin stuff called “Submission”, given to me as a joke. Word to the wise: Don’t even touch that stuff! Not only can it burn skin I had to suck an ice cube for 30 minutes to get the pain out of my mouth and it wasted a heavenly dish of soup. I can take stuff plenty hot, but that is ridiculous.

If your mouth heat receptors are that fired up, you aren’t really going to enjoy that sneaky bacon flavor so carefully crafted into the gumbo. Plus if you get macho and eat too much hot sauce, you will feel like you have been smoking menthol cigarettes with your nether parts the next day. I know of what I speak. I’ll write about trying to get on the “Wall of Flame” at the Prince of Wales Pub someday, but that is still a tender subject.

Laissez Les bon Temps Roulez!

Drinks From Past and Present: Louisiana Chronicles and Tales of Brain Cells Lost.

People fall into two basic groups. Those who spent their late high school and college years too drunk to remember anything, and those who remember all too well exactly what happened. I am not much of a lush, and I choose to keep things seen and unseen during those years to myself. Fortunately I have a good memory for recipes and enough brain cells left over to be able to share them.

I also have a pending a Mardis Gras Party coming up on January 31^st, 2010. I’ll post Cajun Recipes on that with pictures. Today I want to discuss the South Louisiana booze factor: pick guitar, fill fruit jar and being Gay-o.

I have an authentic church lady cookbook from South Louisiana, thanks to my dear best Cajun Friend. I love the fact that there are various libations published in a church cookbook. Bullfrog drink is one of my favorites:

The Bullfrog

1 can frozen limeade

½ can water

½ can of vodka (just pour it right into the juice can)

¾ cup Triple Sec Blend with ice, serve with lime. Cool you down, yeah.

We happen to have another incarnation of the Bullfrog. It is a Southern Drink Recipe garnered by LW, a friend of Stuart’s from Virginia. We know the drink fondly as “Green Goddam”. You won’t find that one in the church cookbook.

Green Goddam

1 can limeade or pack of lime Kool-Aid

Several cans of Mountain Dew, maybe even a liter

1 liter of vodka or a gallon

Green fruit if you care – limes, green grapes…uh, green stuff.

Mix into a gallon jug with some ice, smuggle into the rock concert. The Vodka doesn’t smell and you can say it is just a fruit cooler to keep you hydrated in the heat. Yeah right.

Back to the Good book of the Church, St Peter’s Altar Society Cookbook.

Here are a few Louisiana Style Christmas Libations :

Ho-Made Amaretto

2 cups water

1 tablespoon instant Yuban Coffee

3 cups sugar

1 oz almond extract

5 tsp vanilla extract

5 dashes bitters (Peychaud’s I bet, being New Orleans)

1 fifth of Vodka

Boil the water, add instant coffee. Add the sugar until it dissolves, add all other ingredients. Cool then add Vodka.

Milk Punch sounds innocent enough, until you wake up at Christmas next to a stranger in a Santa Suit.

½ gallon ice milk (A southern treat like ice cream, but lighter on the thighs)

½ gallon low-fat milk

2 cups of whiskey

Mix and freeze until NEEDED. Thaw it. Froth it, drink it.

(both by Jackie Desselle. She makes all the good stuff)

Ho Ho Ho Coffee is another Louisiana Christmas special.

¼ cup cream de cacao

¼ cup Amaretto (See recipe above for homemade!)

¼ cup light Rum

Put the mixture into each cup with one heaping Tbsp of powdered sugar. Pour Black Chicory coffee over this. Add whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles, cinnamon and nutmeg.

(Jackie LaBorde is to be thanked for this libation)

Jungle Juice is well known to us Southern-educated college kids. In South Louisiana (and apparently at the church picnics) they make it with pineapple juice, 7 up, maraschino cherries, frozen orange juice and Vodka. We kids cut to the chase: Hawaiian punch powder, water, vodka, Ever Clear booze. Fruit if you want chunks in your puke, none if you want to spew freely.

Swamp Juice is a mutation of Jungle Juice, with a Louisiana Theme. The last batch of this I made was at Jack’s house, 1982 Senior party. I haven’t seen it since.

Swamp Juice

I bottle Blue Curacao. More to adjust color. Blue food coloring can be added too as needed.

1 gallon orange juice

Gallons of vodka, Ever Clear and Southern Comfort

Lime Kool-Aid for additional color, water and ice

More Orange Juice for thickening. Pineapple juice from the can.

Chunks of fruit: oranges, pineapple, limes, whatever

Throw in Little plastic boats and plastic alligators, large enough to not be swallowed by drunken people.

Mix all in a clean garbage can or cooler. Scoop into party glasses with a plastic cup or scoop. Drink until you can no longer see.

Hurricanes that blow away your mind, not your house.

Pat O’Brien’s is hard to get into on a Friday night. Thankfully hurricanes can be had pretty much anywhere in New Orleans.

Who has not walked down Bourbon street to frequent the Hurricane outlet where one can trip lightly between frozen drink machines, sampling boozy flavors as easily as purchasing an Icee from 7-Eleven? You can even mix a Suicide drink – just put as many flavors together as you can and suck it down. It all looks the same coming back up.

Non Sequitur: I continue to be amazed by the continued existence of drive through Daiquiri stands in Louisiana. There is nothing like a cold drink on a 90-plus day with 150 percent humidity. Please drive within the lines.

Question: Why are all of these drinks red?

Now that I am more mature, I favor more mature sophisticated cocktails where one can look sophisticated and get potted on quality ingredients. No Kool-Aid involved. There is a saying in New Orleans. “Hurricanes are for Tourists, Sazeracs are for Natives.”

The Sazerac Cocktail is the piece de resistance of Louisiana Libations. It is making a come back amongst the hipper mixologists and social drinkers. The Sazerac has a fantastic history in New Orleans, being named after a particular Cognac, Sazerac-du-Forge et fils, and first served publicly at the Sazerac Coffeehouse in 1853. A Creole apothecary named Antoine Amadie Peychaud, inventor of the aromatic Peychaud’s bitters, created the special bitters used in the drink in the 1800s. He gave the bitters to his patients to cure stuff, and mixed it into a toddy of French brandy and sugar to serve to friends.

In 1870, the cognac was changed to Rye Whiskey, which became known as Sazerac Rye. A dash of Absinthe was added to coat the glass, then banned as it was thought to cause madness. It was replaced by another licorice pastis unique to New Orleans called Herbsaint. All these ideas came together to create the Sazerac, an exquisite and complex drink that has been enjoyed for 150 years.

If you watch the James Bond Movie filmed in the bayous of Louisiana, (Live and Let Die) not only do you get to appreciate the talents of one of the few groups of African American stuntmen, and get to see James use live alligators as stepping stones, you get to see him order a Sazerac in a bar. Very authentic, James. Way to blend in.

Sazerac Cocktail

2 ounces of 6-yr old Red Sazerac Rye whiskey.

The drink can also be made with Old Overholt 4-yr old Whiskey, or an excellent Cognac, or a combination of the two. Rittenhouse Bonded Straight Rye Whiskey, 100 proof is also acceptable.

1 teaspoon Simple Sugar, or one cube of muddled cane sugar in water

Fresh lemon, Meyer if you have it for extra flavor. Strip of fresh peel.

4 dashes -Peychaud’s bitters (Specialty liquor stores)

1 dash Angostura bitters (Available everywhere)

½ to 1 tsp Absinthe, or Herbsaint. Both impart a licorice flavor Pernod can also be used, but Herbsaint is recommended.

Sazerac Preparation Traditional Method:

Pack a heavy rocks glass with ice to chill

In another glass, moisten the sugar with just enough water to crush it. Blend in whiskey and bitters. Add a little ice to chill.

Discard the ice from the rocks glass and drain. Coat the inside of the entire glass with ½ to 1 tsp Herbsaint or Absinth. Roll around to coat entire glass. Some discard the excess, I like to keep it because I like the extra licorice flavor at the bottom of the glass.

Strain the whiskey into the coated glass. Twist the lemon peel over the drink to coat the top with lemon oil. Rub the lemon pulp and peel around the edge of the glass.

Sip slowly and contemplatively. Deny yourself water or ice in the drink. As it warms in your hand, enjoy how each flavor announces itself to your mouth. Add more of the ingredients you like in the next batch. I like additional lemon and Herbsaint. I don’t consider this a large group party drink, it is a special treat for a small group of friends.

Thanks to:

Chuck Taggart for the published history on the Sazerac Cocktail http://www.gumbopages.com/chuck.html

Thanks to the St. Peter's Altar Society Church Lady Cookbook, Bordelonville Louisiana.

Thanks to Southern Comfort Cocktail times for the loan of a Hurricane picture.

Home Cooking in Costa Rica and Other TIdbits

It has taken me up to this point, January 2010, to finally get to Costa Rica. I travel with my girlfriend and fellow seasoned traveler, Joanne because my husband generally does not travel well. The very unfinished and windy roads of Costa Rica (and of most countries where I end up landing) would turn him green, and there would be little to say about the honest hunger that comes from a long day of travel.

Joanne and I are both therapists and serious cooks/gastronomes, and we pride ourselves on our ability to read people quickly and to integrate ourselves into a different culture. From working with all sorts of people over the past 20 years, I have found there is no better ice breaker, then a genuine interest in the local cuisine. I like to eat, and I especially like to eat home cooked meals in another country when the opportunity presents itself. I am never a fan of typical tourist spots, famous destination restaurants or being a silly American in need of something comfortable and familiar, like the Golden Arches when in a strange land. If the earth opened right up and swallowed every single Hard Rock Cafe, I would thank the earth personally.

I think it is a real compliment to accept the local cuisine, even if your tendency is to be a bit squeamish about the surrounding hygiene. That being said, as much as I admire Anthony Bourdain for eating ostrich eggs off the ground in Africa and chowing down on wild pig anus, I am definitely giving that a miss. I would not call it a limit per se, but perhaps a food boundary. I have good boundaries. But I digress.

When I meet people of another culture the first thing I do is attempt some communication in their language. I also speak quietly. I don't expect the volume of my voice to convey any more or any less information, and I never shout at people to enhance understanding. That trick never works. The next subject I broach is food. Their food, the local ingredients, what they like to cook, what spices they use. If I have a fantastic meal, I talk to them about how they prepared it and I find people always willing to tell me ingredients and share recipes. If the opportunity presents itself, I will get into their kitchen and help them prepare the next meal and be an avid student. I have yet to meet a cook who does not like this sort of attention. I like it myself when people appreciate my food enough to want a recipe.

With that introduction, let me present a small overview on traditional Tico food, on the pacific side of Costa Rica.

I stayed at AmaTierra, a yoga and natural health center type place in the sticks, far away from San Jose or any other large city, and fairly far away from the coast too. The closest little towns were San Pablo (pop. 2000) and Puriscal. (pop. 17,000) Everyone owns a horse, all of the roads are unnamed, and many are just rock-strewn dirt paths that wind down to some little gate and a crookedly lettered sign to a little family finca replete with fresh eggs and maybe a few coffee plants. The drive there from the airport can take years off of your life. I found myself closing my eyes as large trucks, people, horses cows and motorbikes all tried to occupy the same space. Miraculously, I witnessed no accidents.

Amatierra prides itself in serving very fresh mostly vegetarian meals with local fresh fruits, vegetables and local fish. Because the cooks are all Ticos, they serve Gallo pinto for breakfast every morning, a mix of rice, red or black beans, onions and bean juice and spices. We had local bread baked by a very interesting pioneer woman expat, and it was filled with carrots, nuts and other fantastic whole grains. She sells her natural chocolate cake in one of the small towns too, and this has become her business along with home-schooling her five children, and growing a small amount of coffee. She hosts horseback rides into the green hilly wilderness of Costa Rica, but that post is an adventure all its own. Joanne and I wanted to spend a day baking bread with her, but she keeps her house sacrosanct from all tourists, even non-tourists like us, so we will have to pursue that another time.

Marjorie, one of the cooks close to our age, took a liking to us and was very open with her recipes. She made a fresh papaya compote with orange Mexican papaya cubes, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and a little bit of cooking to create a bit of syrup. She poured this over vanilla ice cream and that was a heavenly dessert. Another night she made a watermelon ceviche with cubes of fresh local melon, soy sauce, sugar, fresh cilantro and sliced red onions - all garnished with butter-flavored popcorn. Very strange, and strangely delicious and served in a martini glass.

We did decide to do the tourista thing one day and traveled to Turu bari park for some ziplining, and a botanical tour. Lunch was included and we expected the worst. We were pleasantly surprised by a fantastic array of traditional tico dishes presented buffet style: Rice, red, pinto and black beans, coconut milk chicken, cinnamon fried plantains, papaya pico gallo, fresh fruit and sliced jicama, and three traditional desserts: flan, sweetened roasted coconut and rice pudding. Chan was served as a chilled pink drink. Chan is a plant that yields black seeds that become mucilaginous in water, and are used to thicken drinks and as a digestive. The pink sweetened fruit juice was just a vehicle for the black seeds, which looked like large sesame seeds. At 85 plus degrees in the park, the drink was refreshing and not too sweet and the seeds went down easily.

Ticos have a thing about dying stuff red. Most fruit drinks are red, and many pastries have a lot of red dye or sugar on them. We met an English teacher who was working in the bakery owned by her mother and sister and we asked her about all this pink and redness in the food. She just said it was a traditional color and left it at that, but did not explain why.

These little red sugar bombs are dense cinnamon sugar cookies stuck together sandwich fashion with pineapple or passion fruit jelly, dyed red (at some point in the process) and rolled in sugar. They are a very traditional Tico cookie, and are touted to be good for "Abuelas Nuevas", new grandmothers! I think that is charming and have no idea why that might be so. I can see I'd better do more research for my next food blog.

We will have to solve that mystery at another time. We laughed to ourselves about all the "red dye number 2" and whether it was healthy for anyone. The red dye was combined with sugar more often than not, so we took our chances.

Joanne and I were able to "invent" a tour for ourselves with the help of a fellow that worked at Amatierra as a handyman. His sister-in-law owned a small finca called Montezumo outside of Puriscal, rumored to serve clay oven baked bread and pizza, fresh grown and roasted coffee, and fresh fried tilapia fish that visitors catch themselves from the pond onsite. We knew that would be an excellent trip. WE first met Liticia, a local expert in the use of medicinal plants and expert cook of any edible plant or creature on the farm. She spoke to use about her Noni tree and we sniffed the malodorous ripe noni fruits, prized by the Hawaiians to heal everything from anemia to diabetes. The fruit smells like rotten goat cheese, and Amelia, the social worker from Chicago who is volunteering there, said she once had the temerity to chew on one raw for full benefit. Once.

Amelia has huevos in more than one case. She invented her own "volunteer" position to learn the art of small farm organic coffee growing and to spread green practices amongst the ticos. Among these practices are using the pig dung to produce the methane for fuel, to avoid burning trash to spare the air and to use natural shade and jungle to support a small crop of organic coffee plants. Amelia went from being a social worker in Chicago for a spanish-speaking population to Costa Rica. We should all think about such an opportunity if it presents itself at the right time in our lives.

We got a real inside look at a small production organic coffee farm, and got to sniff and taste raw and roasted coffee beans.

Later after lunch we get a chance to taste a fresh brewed cup of that days' roasting. Leticia set about preparing lunch for us, and she posed like a fashion model to let us snap photos in her minimally appointed country kitchen above the tilapia pond.

Her heavy iron gas burners were fueled directly from a biodigester of fresh pig shit, with a pipe leading directly from the tank to the stove. That didn't bother us one bit. Burn off the methane and the lunch smells heavenly just the same. She prepared some long stringy greens a lot like mustard greens, sauteed in garlic and oil. You can see them lying on the table in the photo. Apparently there are many greens and grasses that are very healthy to eat, and the Ticos know what to harvest at any given time. I have forgotten the name of these greens unfortunately, but they were bitter and tasty.

Letitica fried up fresh tilapias for our taxi driver, and for his opportunistic brother who happened to come along for a free meal. We noticed he managed to get TWO free meals, a fried fish, and chicken from the second round of cooking. The volunteers took note and didn't think much of him at all, especially his propensity to shout into his cell phone at the lunch table.

We enjoyed a perfectly seasoned fresh pounded piece of chicken, plantains sauteed in butter, rice, beans, fresh cabbage salsa with papaya and a fruit drink made from two unknown fruits that looked a lot like a thick apple juice, and tasted like apple and pear. We had a hard time getting the spanish translation for these fruits, so that is another mystery for me to chase down. Chayote squash is ubiquitous there as a plant and a vegetable, and is served at every meal. It has many mythical health benefits amongst the Ticos, but perhaps it helps that it is plentiful.

To finish the meal, that perfect cup of coffee but alas! No fresh milk! They use every drop to make fresh cheese, and coffee was expected to be drunk straight up and was offered with powdered creamer and natural cane sugar.

After the tour of the Finca de Montezuma, we walked around the small town of Puriscal in search of the famoso and perfect chicharron: a ball of fried smoked pork still attached to a leg bone. In Mexico, Chicharrones are fried bits of pig skin with fat attached, served with hot sauce. In Costa Rica, a lot more meat is involved. Amelia's eyes got dreamy when she spoke of eating Puriscal's chicharrones. She recommended eating them as often as possible, and damn the consequences. Joanne had overheard health-food pounding Bob of Amatierra rhapsodizing over his lack of bacon while on the phone with a customer. His yogi wife doesn't allow bacon in the house. I found the perfect carneceria in Puriscal, and bought some bags of chicharrones to smuggle back into the yoga paradise of bean sprouts and grilled fish. Instead of being delighted Bob promptly stuck to his guns and rejected the offering saying, "God! No Way! I got so SICK on those one time, yada yada yada...". Well that is what he gets for letting pork slip off of his food chain. I gave the fresh, fragrant chicharrones to Marjorie and to Roberto at the hotel, and they were delighted. After all they are FAMOUS in Puriscal, and not everyone gets there every week. I think I trust Marjorie and Robertos' judgement on the chicharrones. I am not going to argue with the Ticos about their chicharrones, though Cato, Marjorie's brother insisted his home town San Pablo had chicharrones as good or BETTER than Puriscal. I don't plan to argue with that either.

Onward to the next adventure! Pura VIda and Mucho Comida Rica!