Food!

Okay, at long last, a post about food. I've been saving up the pics. 

When I told people I was going to Portugal, the one thing everyone said is that the food is fantastic. Which made me feel a little guilty because I wasn't so into it. Very heavy on the grease, meat, and cheese.

Our day trip to the Paiva Staircase included a "traditional Portuguese meal" of which the main course was two enormous dishes of meat and potatoes.

I did try a couple of traditional meals that I thought might be more up my alley, and the rice-and-bean stew I got in a plato do día was definitely delicious (and I tried the codfish fritters, but they weren't my favorite).

I also tried a veggie version of a francesinha, which seems like the Portuguese version of poutine, but I wasn't a big fan.

So other than that, I decided to just get food that sounded good to me, even if it wasn't Portuguese. And then, in general, I'd say the food was good. At a bar that I had no hopes for, I ordered a veggie crepe and got this beautiful work of art.

There were roasted chestnut carts in the main squares of the cities, an amazing winter treat that took me right back to living in Italy 24 years ago, the first and last time I ever had roasted chestnuts, which I very much love.

One night I made a little feast of them, along with a bit of cheese and fig/nut roll I'd bought at an artisanal store that day, plus an orange I took from a tree in a park that was heavy with them. (There were SO MANY oranges around, many of them just seemed to be falling from the trees and going to rot, people not even knowing what to do with all of them.)

Of COURSE I had to try the pastry that was mentioned in everything I read or heard about Portuguese food, the sweet, eggy pastel de nata.

The pastries, in general, are incredible.

Though I'm not much of a drinker, I LOVED ginja, a sour cherry liquor that they serve in little chocolate cups. Heaven.

And you can never go wrong with bread and olives.

The apex of food experiences the whole time I was there might have been the afternoon in Porto when my honorary Auntie S treated us to a port tasting, along with a cheese board and charcuterie. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

Budapest: food & outskirts

One of the activities my mom and I did in Budapest was a food tour, where a former chef and Hungarian native took us around town for three hours feeding us local foods till we could eat no more.

GOSH do they love their paprika.

And sausages...

...and cheese (and other dairy). This cheese sits atop a layer of sour cream, all adorning a round of fried dough, a deathly and delicious Hungarian staple called langos. Yum. But yikes. And this is a tiny percentage of all the foods we saw and tried over the course of three hours. We decided to just boil some rice for dinner after this eating adventure.

Another local adventure was taking the train a half-hour outside of the city to the town of Szentendre, which is actually a Serbian-settled village that has turned into a kind of artists' colony. Mostly I just loved how impossibly colorful and photogenic it was.

Also, there was gelato (not pictured).

Okay, I'll leave it at that for Budapest--and unfortunately, Hungary in general. This trip is not digging too deep into any one country but hitting a handful of really great cities. Next we'll cross the border into Slovakia and check out its capital city of Bratislava.

Laguna de Apoyo

One of my yoga teacher training friends (J) and I hatched a plan to travel around together for a bit after the training, as both of us had a few weeks left before our plane tickets home. In the meantime, her parents decided to come to Nicaragua for a visit to the condo they own in Laguna de Apoyo, near Granada. So leaving Ometepe...

 

....I made my way to lovely Laguna de Apoyo to rendez-vous with them. What a treat to stay in such a nice place with such an amazing view, not to mention great company.

We had all kinds of fun over our few days there, including finding a very tarantula-like creature (see it up by the ceiling?) that the maintenance guy insisted was "just a spider."

Granada is only a 15-20 minute drive from Laguna, and with J's parents' rental car, a very easy trip for dinner and other activities--such as watching this band of breakdancing kids.

We also took a boat out to Las Isletas, a group of (they say) 365 islands (aka the "Calendar Islands") that were created by rock flung from nearby Volcan Mombacho in a long-ago explosion. Today, many of these islands are privately owned and have ridiculously beautiful houses on them.

The volcano in the not-so-distance:

And our own little boat, at a fraction of the cost of what the Granada tour companies charge for the same trip, with the drawback being that the captain spoke only Spanish, and I had to be the translator, even though I don't really speak Spanish! Oh, well, we still had fun.

Back to lovely Granada for another lovely meal (this is the life, I'm telling you).

Though we also had a whole lot of fun making our own meals. J and I bought a couple of plantains from a supermarket, some cashews from a local vendor, and--using coconut oil also sourced from Nicaragua--made ourselves a ridiculously tasty breakfast one morning.

 

Then, that evening, we took a Thai cooking class with one of the other owners at the resort.

Okay, there is more, but this post is already too long. Too be continued....

A Cookie Jon Food Tour of NYC

The Executive Chef at the org where I worked in Denver is a swell guy whose credits are too many to list here. Suffice it to say that even if he wasn't a native New Yorker, he's the one I'd ask for advice on where to eat while visiting the Big Apple. But since he is a native New Yorker, the advice led me off, as well as on, the beaten trail to an extravaganza of enjoyable overeating. Neither my wallet nor my time afforded me visiting all of the places he recommended, but I did as best I could and that was pretty darn good, in every sense. In what follows, the italics are from Jon's message to me....

There are lots of ramen places in NYC, but then there’s Cocoron Soba at 61 Delancy. Go for lunch, show up early. Super authentic, tiny and delicious.

Lots of tourists go to Eataly...

...but check out the Madison Square Market across the street.

Oh, and speaking of markets, go to the Chelsea Market.

OK, I am also a deli fan, especially the older ones. There are lots like Katz’s and 2nd Avenue delis. But I really love the smoked fish shops like Russ and Daughters and Barney Greengrass. Such a throwback—very NYC.

While you’re down there in Brooklyn, get on the train towards Coney Island and get off a stop before at Brighton Beach. The whole area is Russian/Ukrainian, even the signs are in Russian. The food and cultural immersion is quite fascinating to experience. Once you’re immersed, walk the boardwalk from Brighton to Coney Island and have a dog at Nathan’s.

(I didn't actually get a hot dog, as I was way more tempted by the chocolate ice.)

Now the challenging one, simply because of its location. L&B Spumoni Gardens is in Brooklyn just off the N line at 86th Street. I used to go here almost every week when I was a kid. The best thing about it is that it’s a great place to people watch and eavesdrop. The place gets an interesting mix of project dwellers, cops, neighborhood regulars and wiseguys (for real). Just sit back on the patio with a slice of “square” and open up your ears. It’s awesome.

And the people watching was just as spectacular as promised. I swear, a police van pulled up just a few minutes after I arrived and the two cops in front sat, double-parked, in the van while a third emerged from the back to fetch dinner for them all, urged on through the open window to be quick about it. I also saw more thick gold chain necklaces on teenage boys' necks I could have imagined.

I can't wait to see what Jon suggests the next time I visit NYC...