SpiceLines

At Nihiwatu on the island of Sumba, eastern Indonesia.

"Remote...great surfing, fishing, beaching."

Someone has it figured out.

Rough night? Open those bleary eyes with the luscious taste of fresh figs, roasted in port with cinnamon and orange zest, spooned over tangy yoghurt--or vanilla ice cream. Sometimes it's OK to have dessert for breakfast.

It’s been a rough couple of days. So many figs, so many dishes to try. Oh the pressure…

Figs roasted with preserved lemon and black peppercorns. Stewed in honey and red wine with cloves and slices of fresh ginger. Pierced with sticks of cinnamon…

But this one’s my favorite.

Guaranteed to bring sunshine into your heart at 6:30 AM, even if you did stay up most of the night, on the phone, waiting to speak with an actual human on your list of banks and credit card companies.

“You have a wonderful day, now,” warbled one robotron in the wee hours after stubbornly refusing to do more than “put a hold on” a filched card.

Who, exactly, said that corporations are people too?

In a New York Times interview, chef Jose Andres singled out Brillat Savarin's Physiologie du Gout as the favorite of all the books in his collection. "He was a visionary...the Jules Verne of gastronomy." Source: Wikimedia Commons

Lovers of actual books may be an endangered species, but consider chef Jose Andres. You might say that he's a fish swimming joyously upstream.

One of Andres’ literary heroes is the writer Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin, who, in The Physiology of Taste, famously wrote, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” In the chef’s case one might paraphrase that celebrated remark to say: “Tell me what you read and I will tell you who you are.”

To read a recent New York Times profile, Andres is more than a peripatetic celeb chef with an empire of 12 restaurants, popular TV shows in the U.S. and Spain and a few cookbooks under his belt.

He’s also an ardent lover of actual books, especially historical ones about food and cooking. In “Not Just Spices on His Shelves,” (The New York Times, August 1, 2012, p. D3), writer Marian Burros gets a first hand look at the chef’s eclectic collection. “Books, for me, this is a way of learning,” he tells her. “This is my college education….Old cookbooks connect you to your past and explain the history of the world.”

Sunshine on a gloomy day: Sweet, crunchy peppers from Elysian Fields Farm make delicious pickles to brighten August meals. I saved the fat jalapenos for fresh tomato salsa.

The first onslaught of fresh peppers, some sweet, some hellishly hot, has coincided with a spate of soggy days. Going outside is like being smothered in a wet blanket.

So why not stay in? It's a chance to get creative in the kitchen.

Sweet peppers are fun to play with. I crunch them raw, slice them into salads dressed with walnut oil and sherry vinegar, and roast them in the flames of the gas burner till they’re soft, smoky tasting and ready for Moroccan salads with cumin and olive oil.

Ditto for the hot ones. Fat green jalapenos can stoke the flames in fresh tomato salsa and coconut milk curries. I also love the milder heat of fire-roasted poblanos in pork and green chile stew although that’s a hearty dish best left for the cooler days of fall.

But yesterday, while the skies were gloomy, I tried something new: turning sweet peppers into spicy pickles. I made two pints: One with Indian seasonings and leaves from the curry plant that’s growing in the tropical garden, the other with lemon thyme and a curled cayenne pepper from the herb garden, along with strips of orange zest.

This morning I had them for breakfast, with toast and a bit of cheese...

Julia Child, from a Polaroid taken by Elsa Dorfman
in 1988. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Today, as you surely know, is the 100th anniversary of Julia Child’s birthday.

One of my favorite Julia stories comes from Colman Andrews who recently wrote a fond, funny appreciation of the woman who, in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes 1 and 2, “changed the way Americans cook and think about food—all food, not just the French stuff.” (The Wall Street Journal, “The Moveable Feast,” August 4 -5, 2012, pp. C5 and C6.)

He reports that at 6 feet two inches tall, she was instantly recognizable, especially after the launch of her popular TV series, “The French Chef.” “She became an icon…sometimes mobbed in public—and she loved it. ‘Why languish as a giantess,’ she once asked, ‘when it is so much fun to be a myth?’ “

Julia’s stature—and good humor—figure in a tiny personal story. One evening long ago B and I took her to a fundraising dinner for the Dallas chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food. She was staying at a huge downtown hotel and as luck would have it, the lobby was packed shoulder to shoulder with half-drunk convention-goers.

How on earth would I find her, I wondered, as I wedged myself into the bibulous throng.

Not to worry. I spotted her easily, standing by a column, smiling expectantly, towering over almost everyone else in the lobby. The crowd parted magically as we made our way to the door. “I knew you would find me,” she laughed as she slid into the front seat of our blue Volvo station wagon.

In a town in which everyone drove Cadillacs and Mercedes, our not-so-new vehicle was probably tricked out with food-spattered baby seats and chewed-up pieces of stale baguettes. “Oh don’t you love your Volvo?” she exclaimed happily. “I have one too—a red one!” Did I say she was kind?

There comes a time when a trip to NYC is in order. A few necessities I couldn't find here: Two English novels in a vintage slipcover, a better salt grinder and an alluring butterfly. For supper at Pok Pok, read on...

A few days in New York, just enough time to uncover some treasures….

A long-sought Perfex salt grinder for pulverizing the chunky Italian sea salt we favor. For B, a vintage Borzoi edition of Angela Thirkell's early novels, High Rising and Wild Strawberries. Pour moi, an iridescent green and black butterfly under glass, markings like eyelashes on velvety wings.

Let’s not discuss the leopard print kitten heels with shiny black patent tips that arrived yesterday.

Top of the list: supper at Pok Pok NY, the newish Brooklyn outpost of Andy Ricker’s acclaimed Portland, Oregon eatery. “Authentic,” mostly Northern Thai food, zingy with chilies and bright aromatic herbs. Long lines to get in, but not last Monday…

Ingredients rich with umami, natural and otherwise: Clockwise from the top right, tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms, Maggi Sauce, fish sauce, seaweed, parmesan cheese, truffle salt and, in the center, tomato ketchup.

What does umami say to you?

Does it conjure images of hamburgers oozing savory juices? Shiitake mushrooms simmering in a flavorful broth? Words like “meaty” or “brothy" or “delicious”?

Or maybe nothing at all?

Even though the word has been around for over a century—umami was coined in 1909 by Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese chemist—it seems that only lately have chefs, restaurants and the rest of the food world begun to ride the wave of “the fifth flavor, an irresistible taste that’s been around since ancient Rome.

For a look at the current craze, consider the lowly hamburger. Umami Burger, a 3-year-old California chain, so wowed GQ’s Alan Richman that in 2010 he voted their signature Umami Burger—“half beef and half beyond belief”—“burger of the year.” Founder Adam Fleishman’s secret appears to be a “master sauce” that contains “organic, house-made MSG.”

That would be monosodium glutamate.

But the burger toppings are also key: Shiitake mushrooms, caramelized onions, roasted tomato, parmesan crisp, umami ketchup flavored with “a bit of truffle.” Starting to get the picture? The winning cheese-tomato-onion-mushroom formula even turns up in the vegetarian Earth Burger: mushroom and edamame patty, white soy aioli, truffle ricotta, cipollini onions, lettuce and slow-roasted tomatoes.

So what the heck is umami? And what does it have to do with MSG?

In the dog days of August, this transparent glass noodle and shrimp salad creates the illusion of coolness. But, spiked with hot green bird's eye chilies and savory with a mixture of salty fish sauce and lime juice, there's more to the dish than meets the eye.

My latest adventure in deliciousness occurred on an impossibly humid afternoon. As I mixed fish sauce, lime juice and sugar on the tropical deck, a swarm of mosquitoes arose from the water pots and headed right for my exposed ankles.

Even the funky fish sauce didn’t deter them.

Serves me right for chopping chilies outside, but then it was only 81 degrees, even if the air was thick and the sun murky behind heavy clouds.

I was half-dreaming that I was along the Chao Phraya in Bangkok, making this savory glass noodle salad for supper. I’ve thrown the dish together on dozens of occasions, ever since K. Karuna, a 5th generation Singaporean and cooking teacher, showed me how one steamy afternoon in her indoor kitchen. (She had two kitchens, one inside and the other right out the back door for “smelly” cooking.)

There's nothing like a glass of intense dark iced chocolate to quiet a chattering mind, and end a frenetic summer on a peaceful note.

Monkey mind is what the Buddhists call it.

A mind that's never still. That whirls frantically from one thought to another. That chatters incessantly, to itself and others, about a thousand niggling fears.

At its worst, monkey mind swings from one branch to another, chases its tail, twists and turns, gets tied up in knots.

Do you need to breathe? To feel the merry-go-round slow down, the chatter fade? The knots dissolve?

Time for la pause. Meditate if you can. But if not, there's chocolate.

Deep, darkly mysterious chocolate, so intense it narrows your focus to the glass in front of you. It's cold, of course, because it's hot outside.

Sip. Breathe. Sip. Let go...