http://www.spicelines.com/ en Copyright 2010 Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:42:27 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss /> In San Antonio there are a lot of contenders for "best breakfast tacos," but it's hard to surpass Las Salsas, a modest eatery which serves barbecued lamb on the weekends. What to do if you’re in San Antonio on a Saturday morning: First show up at Las Salsas around 11:30 AM. That’s when the weekend special, barbacoa de borrego, is ready. The lamb, braised until the meat falls off the bones, comes with fresh cilantro, sliced avocado and onion, atop a trio of small, very thin corn tortillas. A squeeze of lime cuts the richness of the meat. Next sit down at one of the formica topped tables and order the 3-taco plate. A few minutes later a platter piled with a truck driver’s ration of unctuous barbecued lamb, so tender that it practically melts in your mouth, arrives at your table. The critter’s neck and shoulder have been braised for 5 hours in a big pan on the stove until it falls off the bone, oozing, it must be said, with delicious lamb fat that’s brown and crispy around the edges. Now load up a delicate corn tortilla with some of that lamb, lay on some avocado, onion and cilantro, and drench the whole thing with lime juice. Roll it up and take a big bite of breakfast taco heaven. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/in_the_land_of_the_breakfast_t.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/in_the_land_of_the_breakfast_t.htm Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:42:27 -0800 Under its snow cap, the witch hazel is sputtering, like a star fizzling sparks on a wet, grey day. The flowering apricot, "Bridal Veil," is in delicate bloom--a blushing bride in the throes of first love, however fleeting. And the earliest crocuses have thrust sturdy buds through the dead leaves, then unfurled wanton purple petals to the sun. Can spring be far behind?]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/signs_of_spring.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/signs_of_spring.htm Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:16:19 -0800 A pristine red snapper, stuffed with scallions and ginger, wrapped in parchment paper, and baked in rock salt, is succulent and sweet, with a faintly nutty flavor. Serve it with a ginger infused soy sauce. I went to the market yesterday, intending to pick up a chicken. But I came home with a fish. A pristine red snapper, pearly scales shimmering atop filigreed rose and silver skin, looked at me though the glass window of the seafood counter. Its eye—the one I could see—was bright and clear. “Choose me!” it whispered. I changed my plans on the spot. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/recipe_saltbaked_red_snapper_w.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/recipe_saltbaked_red_snapper_w.htm Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:59:49 -0800 Flaky Halen Mon sea salt from Wales meets sweetly floral, ground Tahitian vanilla beans and bittersweet chocolate. The result: A match made in culinary heaven. I’m addicted to salt. Always have been, always will be. Now I don’t eat spoonfuls of salt right out of the box, a mortal sin to which New York Times food editor Craig Claiborne famously confessed. (Later he atoned by writing Craig Claiborne's Gourmet Diet which minimized fat and salt.) But I have been known to slip into the pantry for a few grains of Hawaiian Alaea sea salt—and shiver with pleasure as the briny red crystals melt slowly over my tongue. I might follow up with a pinch of ancient Japanese sea salt infused with the brothy, umami-like flavors of Hon’dawara seaweed. For the finale, maybe some delicately creamy Spanish flor de sal. Why worry about food when you can get your artisan salt fix straight from the pantry? ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/confessions_of_a_salt_eater_fi.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/confessions_of_a_salt_eater_fi.htm Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:31:06 -0800 When you're playing for keeps, French toast slathered with raspberry vanilla jam and vanilla creme, and sprinkled with powdered sugar, will unlock your true love's heart. “It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is over. The very essence of romantic love is uncertainty….” Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest If you can believe The Wall Street Journal, America’s florists are in a snit. In media circles, the word is out: Why buy a dozen all too perishable (and expensive) roses on Valentine’s Day when “…computer goodies…last longer”? (See The Flower, the Leaf and the Lobby: A Valentine's Tale, The Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2010, p. W13.) Oh, yes? You'd like some anti-virus software? Or maybe a Crackberry? How romantic. But you know, fragility is the nature of romantic love. It can be as ephemeral as a rose petal or as evanescent as a Laduree macaron. And as Wilde observed, a firm proposal can be the start of The Big Letdown. But what if you’re playing for keeps? How to capture the object of your affections and keep the glow for the next, um, 27 years? Well, tomorrow morning you might want to awaken your true love with a plate of triple vanilla raspberry hearts. But be sure your love's more than a passing fancy: These delicious French toast trifles are so addictive that you’ll have to pry the loser’s clenched fingers from your doorjamb when things fall apart. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/playing_for_keeps_triple_vanilla_raspberry_hearts_for_your_true_love.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/playing_for_keeps_triple_vanilla_raspberry_hearts_for_your_true_love.htm Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:14:48 -0800 Antidote for winter: A stone basin filled with fragrant plumeria, marigolds and rose petals welcomes visitors to a spa in Cochin. Before massage, a delicious detox tea of holy basil, lemon and honey. Cold, sleeting rain, cloudy skies, 50 mph gusts of icy wind. Will winter never end? Well, never mind. I've got just the cure: A sunny tour of India. Blue skies, bright flowers, a temple, and markets to die for. Come along and take a look...]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/cure_for_a_winter_chill_a_sunn.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/cure_for_a_winter_chill_a_sunn.htm Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:21:09 -0800 How to make great chili: Lightly brown chunks of premium buffalo in olive oil , liberally season with ground chiles, warm spices and a cup of black coffee, simmer slowly for at least two hours. Top with avocado. Eat with warm corn tortillas. There are just three things you need for truly great chili: 1. Excellent meat. 2. Superb seasonings. 3. Time. In other words, great chili is all about slow-cooking the very best ingredients. Of course this is heresy in some circles, chili having been “invented” as a way to tenderize cheap, tough cuts of meat by stewing them with spicy peppers. But trust me. It’s better this way. A few days ago, while the snow was swirling through the air, I became obsessed with the idea of chili. This happens every winter: When it’s cold and grey, I start hanging around the butcher, checking out cuts of meat to put in the pot. Chuck roast or bottom round? Beef or buffalo? Then I have to putter around my own pantry, sniffing jars of dried chiles and spices. Cumin is a must, but what else ?]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/recipe_thunderheart_bison_and.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/recipe_thunderheart_bison_and.htm Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:30:58 -0800 All cumin is not created equal: The Moroccan spice (on the right) has a fresh, earthy, almost vegetative aroma. Indian cumin (on the left) is warm and mellow, with a touch of citrus. "No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…" In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust Proust was talking about tea and madeleines, of course. But I’m thinking of cumin. Many of us have a scent-memory that so completely envelops us in a golden haze of well-being that the disasters of the day are instantly reduced to nothingness, like shreds of papery ash floating in the air after a raging fire. Do you have a fragrant memory that transports you to a feel-good place? The smell of a succulent turkey roasting in your grandmother’s Magic Chef gas range(the one with the enameled blue and white Delft tile pattern that you’d die to have in your own kitchen)? The sultry scent of a voluptuous French rose on a humid summer day? ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/cumin_the_sunshine_spice.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/02/cumin_the_sunshine_spice.htm Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:53:50 -0800 Sensible tea drinkers will drink their brew inside, but me? What better way to warm body and soul on a snowy day than with a glass of hot, sweet Moroccan mint tea? Do you love freshly fallen snow as much as I do? Just imagine: Pristine drifts, pooled around gnarled oak trunks, a dusting of crystals on bright pink camellia blossoms, a white blanket billowing over rough ground, smoothing imperfections. When the wind blows, snow showers cloud the air. Of course it’s easy to feel good when you only get two or three days of real snow a year. Instead of a labor, it’s cause for quiet celebration. You can hunker down inside, warming yourself by the fire… Or you can have a Moroccan tea party in the snow. Naturally that means mint tea sweetened with sugar and served steaming hot in bright blue glasses embellished with golden arabesques. One tiny sip and I’m in a cave dwelling near Fez, reclining on brocade cushions while a Berber woman simmers the intensely aromatic tea in an old brass kettle on a gas burner. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/a_moroccan_mint_tea_party_in_t.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/a_moroccan_mint_tea_party_in_t.htm Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:09:34 -0800 Cleaning out the spice pantry, I discovered a forgotten cache of nutmegs. I cracked one open and inhaled its sweet, warm scent. Suddenly I found myself back in Kerala on a spice farm watching a man clamber up a nutmeg tree... Snow is on its way…promises of thick flurries overnight with icy rain thrown in for good measure. That makes it an excellent weekend to stay inside and purge the spice pantry, amongst other projects. Nigel Slater cleaned out his own spice cupboard last Sunday, unearthing “a jar of whole cloves, whose scent reminds me of garden pinks; a thick glass pot of bone-dry cumin seed….vanilla beans as black as your hat….” and much more. At guardian.co.uk, he wrote that “each cap unscrewed, every jar sniffed is a story all of its own.” My own spice pantry is also full of stories. It’s a museum of time travel, a “sniffing bar” offering instant sensory recall: Opening a jar of nutmeg, breathing in its warm, sweet scent, wafts me to Kerala, to a spice garden where a barefooted man is scrambling up a tree to cut down ripe nutmegs with a wickedly sharp blade. A shower of greenish gold fruit the size of small nectarines tumbles to the ground. He cuts through the flesh to reveal a shiny, purplish brown nut enmeshed in scarlet filigree. The nut is nutmeg, of course, and the filigree is fresh mace, which will eventually fade to a dark golden orange. Ironically the fragrance of both spices emerges only when they have been dried. Slater tackled his “great scented treasure chest of ingredients” by making chicken curry—with cardamom pods, black peppercorns, cumin, coriander and ground chilli among other spices—and a fig and walnut cake flavored with vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. (For the recipes, click the link above.) As for me, I’ll be making a dent in my own mountain of spices with James Oseland’s spekkuk, a buttery Indonesian pound cake scented with nutmeg, cinnamon and clove—a sweet reminder of the tropics on a cold and snowy day. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/weekend_project_purging_the_sp.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/weekend_project_purging_the_sp.htm Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:28:10 -0800 In the kitchen of my dreams, chef Bahija shows us how to simmer eggplant separately from other vegetables in the coucousiere. Eventually all the spice infused vegetables will be arranged over the golden couscous, along with chickpeas, almonds and sweet onions. It’s the plague from hell. At least that’s what I’m calling the flu that ripped through our house last week. It felled everyone but the dog—and with her red rimmed eyes and occasional wheeze, I’m betting she has it too. Somewhere between coughing fits and the 17th rerun of House, I floated off to Morocco and sunny kitchen at Jnane Tamsna. High ceilings, pale green walls, heavy marble counters and tall windows opening onto a garden of palms, olive trees and cascading white bouganvillea. And a flood of sunlight, lending a luminous glow to the proceedings. On the stove, an earthenware tagine with ginger- and cumin-scented kefta, or meatballs, bubbling in a tomato sauce redolent of garlic and fresh coriander….golden semolina couscous steaming in a curvaceous pot, a savory vegetable stew simmering below…fruity olive oil, Tamsna’s own, decanted into old green wine bottles. It’s the kitchen of my dreams. A purely escapist fantasy, to be visited on dreary winter days… ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/antidote_for_a_winter_flu_a_su.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/antidote_for_a_winter_flu_a_su.htm Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:32:01 -0800 Note: All the books in this post and the previous one have been taken. My goodness! The books just flew out the window. Most were gone in the first 11 hours. Indian cookbooks led the most wanted list. Most requested: Suvir Saran’s American Masala, followed by Hari Nayak’s Simple Indian Cooking. Nancy scooped up American Masala, Deborah just made it under the wire for the latter. Apologies to those of you who wrote in a few minutes later. A big surprise: Only two of you asked for Jamie at Home. Last year everyone was clamoring for the Naked Chef. Not so this time around. So do you think Jamie is overexposed? Underexposed? Or have we just moved on? I’ll be watching his campaign against fast food in West Virginia. I was delighted to hear that many of you, like me, live in small towns, far from the culinary capitals of the world. Yet like me, you have a consuming passion for curries and tagines, and travel to India, Morocco, Mexico and other spicy places. I’m thrilled that you share my interests! Here’s a very short list of the remaining books: The Sweet Spot, Pichet Ong. Ong, a 2005 Pastry Art and Design Magazine “10 Best” chef, rolls out 100 recipes for inventive Asian-inspired sweets. Among them: Kabocha Squash Cheesecake with Walnut Crust, the most requested dessert at Jean Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market (where Ong was pastry chef) after it was featured in a Melissa Clark article for The New York Times. Other popular recipes include Ong's Jasmine Rice Pudding and Chocolate and Vietnamese Coffee Tart. Alimentum, Issues 2, 4 and 5. “The only literary review all about food.” Short takes—poems, stories, memories, thought pieces—mean you can read just as much or as little as you want in one sitting. I loved an interview with novelist Diana Abu- Jaber about the role food plays in her books Crescent and The Language of Baklava. Also Barbara Singleton’s "Skimming Off the Top," a tale of eating yogurt in Kashgar, Lhasa and Goa. Entertaining bedtime reading. And in case you were in an alternate universe last November—or maybe just riding camels on the beach in Morocco—I have a pristine copy of Gourmet’s last issue, still in its plastic mailer, virtually untouched by human hands. Gorgeous photos, interesting riffs on familiar Thanksgiving recipes, a last glimpse of the late great magazine. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/update_on_spicelines_2nd_annua.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/update_on_spicelines_2nd_annua.htm Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:19:13 -0800 It’s that time again. The bookshelves in the spice room—a.k.a. my office—are a shambles. I can’t stand it a minute longer. After ransacking the room for Paula Wolfert’s Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, I found it sandwiched between Okakura’s Book of Tea and Nathaniel’s Nutmeg—all three under a chair, which naturally I haven’t sat in for six months because of all the books piled on the seat. Elizabeth David’s Spices, Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen had fallen into the gigantic Thai granite mortar that sits on the floor. My books on saffron are perched precariously on a set of much loved but never used antique Japanese rice bowls, still encrusted with dirt from the farmland where they were excavated. And don’t ask me where I’ve been keeping the memory cards from India and Morocco—or why the spice room smells of cardamom. Could it be that a certain plastic bag burst and scattered fragrant seeds behind the bookshelves? Time to neaten up—and purge. That’s where you come in: For the second year in a row I’m forcing myself to part with some of the great foodie books I’ve acquired this year and before. There’s a passel of cookbooks, a novel, a few issues of Alimentum and a pristine copy of Gourmet’s swansong, just in case you missed it. All you have to do is send an email to spicelinesatyahoodotcom Tell me which book you’d like—and give me a second choice since they tend to fly the coop pretty fast. Be sure to include your name and mailing address. If you get your request in first, I’ll let you know right away and send you the book you want for free. That’s right! For free! (Only if you live in the lower 48, I’m afraid—shipping costs are off the charts.) Ready? Click below to see the titles: ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/spicelines_2nd_annual_cookbook.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/spicelines_2nd_annual_cookbook.htm Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:13:58 -0800 At first I thought the boy was just standing on the hill, gazing into the distance like so many others I’d seen. For instance: the grey-bearded man in a green djellaba, striding smoothly across a dry, stubbly field, eyes fixed on the horizon. Or the Berber woman in white scarf and red velvet dress, back turned to the road, waiting quietly for someone—or something—unseen But then I saw the boy move slightly toward me, hand casually on hip, eyes averted. I raised my camera, unsure. “He’s letting you take his picture, “ said Peggy. Snap. Instead of disappearing over the hill, he began to scramble down the sharp embankment, feet sliding in the dust. Suddenly he was in front of me, staring intently, almost fearfully, into the lens. Was his heart pounding like mine? Snap. I pulled up the photo and turned the camera so he could see. He glanced, then backed away. Did the image alarm him? Or was that not the point? For him, perhaps it was an act of courage. For me, a forever memory. I turned my eyes to the road. In the distance the unseen sea beckoned. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/morocco_diary_a_brief_encounte.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/morocco_diary_a_brief_encounte.htm Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:50:28 -0800 No more boring breakfasts: A hardboiled egg dipped into sea salt and freshly ground cumin and black peppercorns electrifies the palate, in a good way. Resolved for 2010: More interesting breakfasts. Intriguing, flavorful, unexpected—and not complicated. The kind of breakfast you can fix while still half asleep, but that will electrify your palate—in a good way. This morning’s menu: Hardboiled eggs dipped in Moroccan cumin, flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. First tasted: At Kasbah du Toubkal—a restored fortress near Imlil in Morocco’s Middle Atlas Mountains—at 7:06 AM November 15, 2009. After the predawn call to prayer and a solitary walk along the parapets of this strangely Himalayan mountain retreat—it stood in for the Tibetan monastery of Dunkar in Kundun, Martin Scorcese’s 1997 film about the Dalai Lama—I was hungry. ]]> http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/taste_of_the_week_egg_with_mor.htm http://www.spicelines.com/2010/01/taste_of_the_week_egg_with_mor.htm Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:26:25 -0800