SpiceLines

A homemade Cubano may be a little lopsided, but the flavor of the slow-roasted pork is incomparable, especially when combined with sweet ham and melting Swiss cheese. A glass of blood orange juice brightens the richness of the sandwich.

I’m crazy about BLTs, especially the ones that have a roasted jalapeno tucked inside. And I’ve been known to inhale a muffuletta from Central Grocery in New Orleans.

But the sandwich I love the best is the Cubano, a basic compilation of slow-roasted pork, sweet ham, Swiss cheese, sour pickles and yellow mustard. Nothing fancy, that’s for sure. But it hits all the happy flavor notes: tangy, sweet, salty, spicy, meaty, and yes, cheesy.

And while I know the ultimate Cubano is somewhere out there, at the moment the one I love the best is the one I make at home. So I’m going to give you the recipe. But first, there are a couple of teeny tiny issues: namely the slow-roasted pork and the bread.

Continue reading "Recipe: The Very Best Cubano May Be the Sandwich You Make at Home; The Secret's in the Pork" »

At La Carreta in Little Havana: crazy colorful murals, an austere Cuban sandwich and the best yuca fries and platanos maduros, both lavishly cooked in lard. Addictive cafe con leche.

When I went to Miami, I had a secret yen.

Palm trees and frangi-panis were definitely part of it. So were mojitos, stuffed with mint and stirred with sticks of sugar cane. Walking down a white sand beach just after dawn: check. And finding chunks of pale coral in the sea foam.

But my deepest yen was to eat a real Cubano in Little Havana.

Continue reading "What We Ate in Miami: Cuban Sandwiches in Little Havana, Tandoor-Cooked Sea Bass with Tamarind, and Wood Oven Roasted Double Yolk Farm Egg for Two" »

The glass tower at the Setai Hotel is modern, but its geometric facade and angled balconies echo South Beach's historic Art Deco look. Part of the Setai is built around the original 1930's Dempsey Vanderbilt Hotel on Collins Avenue.

On a tropical playground, what's more glam than a grand Art Deco hotel?

All that geometry, all that streamlined symmetry, all those sunbursts and ziggurats, evoke a more orderly yet lavish moment in history. Big bands, sequined dresses with mermaid fishtails and coupes of the bubbliest champagne. Palm trees, ocean liners and white sand beaches...

An alluring fantasy, like dropping into the midst of a Busby Berkeley number (music by Artie Shaw), and not being one of the chorus girls...

Continue reading "For Mother’s Day, a Little Deco Dazzle from South Beach" »

Photo: Setai South Beach, Miami

Time to view the world through rainbow-colored glasses.

This time it's a girls' getaway. There'll be mojitos and manicures, for sure, but also a trip to Little Havana for a medianoche and cafe cubano. A dip into Miami's art scene, a search for exotic rums, and topsy turvy small plates at Michys. And since I'm still longing for that cocktail-yoga pavilion, a peek at Gandia Blasco's Cristal Box.

Mostly there'll be time, time on the sandy beach and at the hedge-enclosed pool where I can already hear a dulcet voice inquiring, "Is everything to your absolute perfection?"

See you next week...

I've adapted Grace Young's original recipe for Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas and Shiitake Mushrooms by adding thinly sliced green garlic and heirloom carrots. But the real improvisation came with the thick-cut smoky bacon B brought home one day...

“There is an age-old Chinese expression: “One wok runs to the sky’s edge,” which means one who uses the wok becomes master of the cooking world. As the wok user becomes master of the cooking world, so does the user of Stir Frying to the Sky’s Edge become master of the stir fry.” From graceyoung.com

If you’ve been reading SpiceLines lately you might think I’ve been subsisting on sugar and alcohol.

Alas, no. As much as I love meringues and rum cocktails, there are times when a girl must eat her vegetables. And one of the most delicious ways to get your broccoli and carrots is in a savory Chinese stir-fry.

I have been a devoted fan of Grace Young ever since I discovered her cookbook, Breath of a Wok, a few years ago. The title refers to the Cantonese phrase wok hay, which Young defines as “the prized, elusive, seared taste that comes only from stir-frying in a wok.”

She learned about wok hay during her early years in San Francisco, eating with her family in Chinatown restaurants. “My father taught me early in life that there is nothing quite as delicious as the rich, concentrated flavors of a Cantonese stir-fry, in which morsels of meat are cooked just quickly enough to ensure their juicy succulence and vegetables are rendered crisp and refreshing.”

But you don’t get wok hay by stir-frying in just any old wok.

Continue reading "Grace Young's Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, and a Recipe for Stir-Fried Sugar Snaps, Shiitakes and Carrots with Green Garlic and Bacon" »

All photos in this post were taken in Sri Lanka by Mystica V. Here, her husband and several workers relax at a family farm in Nuala. Cinnamon is grown at another property in Elpitiya.

Have you ever wondered why cinnamon quills are curled like rolls of ancient paper?

Ceylon cinnamon, that is, the warm, woody spice that, when whole, resembles a single rolled layer of soft brown crumbly bark: This is the "true" cinnamon whose subtle aroma is faintly perfumed with citrus and clove, and whose flavor is both sweet and mildly astringent.

It’s a beautiful spice, one which too few Americans have tasted, given the fact that its more pungent and assertive cousin cassia has stolen its identity, at least in the supermarkets where it’s fobbed off as “cinnamon.”

Mystica V, who lives in Sri Lanka, knows all about true cinnamon. She and her family own a property at Elpitiya in the southern part of the island where the spice is grown and harvested. Elsewhere the family has fields in which “tea, pineapple, mandarin oranges, chillies, vegetables, rubber and a bit of cloves” are cultivated.

Does it sound like a tropical paradise? Maybe—until you hear about the monkeys that raid the corn, the porcupines that tear up young coconut palms and the wild elephant who pays daily visits.

“He just stands at a distance of 300 metres and looks at everything,” Mystica writes. “He comes again in the night and does not deviate from his route, so there’s no point putting up fences…he just breaks the wall and goes through!!!”

Farming is the same everywhere: Hard work and lots of it.

Although cinnamon trees can grow 50 feet tall, they are kept small to allow for easy harvesting. But let Mystica explain in her own words and pictures…

Continue reading "Cinnamon Harvest in Sri Lanka: How the Peelers "Magically" Remove the Bark in One Piece" »

Your reward for a day of planting: the May Wonder cocktail, made of strawberries muddled with fresh basil, white rum, a squeeze of lime, simple syrup and a dash of rose water.

Awake at 6:37 AM. Out of the house at 7:07. Loading a cardboard tray with lemon basil, chocolate mint and other plants at 7:26.

Not the way I normally like to spend Saturday morning. It’s fine to wake up early as long I can go downstairs, greet the Buddha, make some green tea and return to bed where I’ll lounge with the newspapers, watching the sun rise over the woods.

But yesterday I was obsessed with getting everything I needed for the 5 O’Clock Garden.

This, as you might guess, is the sliver of the garden that shines at the cocktail hour. In high summer it’s bursting with ingredients that can be used to create drinks with flavors so vibrant that store-bought substitutes simply wilt with shame: fiery Thai chiles for infused vodka, fragrant black-stemmed mint for super-refreshing mojitos , dill flowers for homemade Bloody Marys, spears of home-grown cucumbers for Pimms Cups, garlic-pickled green cherry tomatoes for vodka martinis, shaken or stirred.

Continue reading "The 5 O'Clock Garden, and the May Wonder Cocktail with Strawberries, Rose and Basil" »