Tomato Kumato

October 23, 2009

Things that make me blissfully happy:

Filed under: Beans and Legumes, Restaurant Reviews — Tags: , , , — emiglia @ 7:58 am

The smell of wood-burning fires.

The taste of hot apple cider.

The smell of wood-burning fires and the taste of hot apple cider together.

Skiing and singing to myself when no one can hear.

Braiding pigtails in anticipation of skiing.

My “Champagne Supernova” ritual.

Staring at a blank page, waiting for drops of blood to appear.

Piercings.

Being with people who know me through and through.

Making tomato sauce and smelling the garlic hit the hot oil.

Riding down an unknown highway at night when someone else is driving.

Sitting in silence with another person while the both of us get lost in work.

Meeting other Americans abroad and just knowing.

Holing up in a café with a café cortado (also known as a café noisette or a caffe macchiato) and my computer to write while I stare at the rain.

Surfing in the rain.

Surfing at all.

Seriously… I don’t understand how something that I barely knew anything about could become such a huge part of me in such a short time. I live for 4 o’clock, for forcing myself into a long-sleeved wetsuit and heading for the surf, board under my arm. I love to watch raindrops fall on the surface of the water–I am in Basque country, after all–especially when they’re so strong that it looks like it’s raining up instead, like the air is absorbing the ocean drop by drop all around me. The rainwater mixes with the saltwater on my face, and I never know when I lick my lips if I’ll taste clear fresh water or the heavy salt I now recognize after being tumbled again and again and again… not that I mind in the slightest.

I get a pang in my stomach when I even think about three weeks from now, when my hair will not be constantly wet, when I start to wear makeup during the day again, because there’s no reason not to if it’s not going to come pouring down your face as you make your first duck under a breaking wave.

I’m getting a little hint of what that will be like now: for the past two days, the waves have been four meters high here–so high, they even make the river angry–and since I can’t get to Mundaka, and even the best surfers in Gros don’t attempt to surf this ocean, which looks ready to devour you whole, I’ve been standing with the rest of them–all of Gros in a line along the beach instead of in the water or in a bar with a caña, watching the waves lap the beach, attacking the rocky jetty and spraying those who get too close.

Today it’s raining again, the kind of rain that I love to surf in, the kind that not only falls but seems to attack the ground, pounding and pelting every surface with gallons of water. I got a pang of longing as I stared at the uncharacteristically empty ocean and beach and headed instead to ZM, a café and restaurant right on the shore, writing instead of surfing, staring through the glass-paned windows at my ocean, already missing it even though it’s not yet truly gone.

During a pause in the rain, I went outside to take pictures, but they don’t do these waves justice: they’re huge and wild and untamable, perfect except for the fact that I can’t be out in them myself. I stood at the edge of the boardwalk and watched them smash the rocks, staring so hard I thought they would absorb me whole. When I got back, I licked my lips, and they tasted like salt spray, the salt that seems to be a permanent fixture of my life here, crusting my eyelashes and drying my hair into beach waves even though it’s nearly November, much longer than I usually allow my hair to curl rebelliously around my shoulders instead of styling it into something more manageable.

I let my usual café cortado go cold as I relished the taste of salt, licking my lips until that too was gone, and all that was left was a hint of rainbow outside and the whitewash of waves at the foot of the hill that looks out over Gros.

Vegetarian Sort-Of Chili

This isn’t really chili, but I treat it like I would chili, sprinkling shredded cheese on top and dousing it with Tabasco. It doesn’t really matter what you call it: it’s perfect after finally abandoning your seat by the window and trudging home through the pelting rain.

1 tsp. olive oil
100 g. lardons, bacon, ham… whatever
1 clove garlic, minced
3 carrots, sliced into half-moons
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 can white navy beans, drained
2 cups tomate frito or tomato purée
2 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
1-2 dried cayenne peppers
salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a heavy stock pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and ham and cook one minute. Add the carrots and cook 2-3 minutes, until they start to color a bit.

Add the beans, tomato and herbs and spices. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are soft, about 20 minutes. Add water if the mixture gets too thick. Serve with hot sauce and shredded cheese.

October 20, 2009

Gâteau Basque

Filed under: Cakes — Tags: , — emiglia @ 3:14 pm

I don’t know if the universe has a plan: I may be cocky at times, but I’m not nearly cocky enough to pretend I have any idea what the universe may or may not be planning for me or for anyone. All I know—all I really can know—is that things have a way of working themselves out, even when you think that there’s nothing that can be done to make your situation better.

I live a life of extremes: I’m not an optimist nor a pessimist, but I can be both in the span of five seconds. I can convince myself that everything is wrong with the world, that I’ll die lonely and bored, that I’ll never make it as a writer and I may as well just hunker down in my pajamas and eat oatmeal until I run out of money… and one little phone call or text message can completely change my outlook on life, make me want to take a shower (to cheers from the rest of the population), comb my hair and actually drag myself out of my desk chair and away from my novel (or, more frequently, web comics with the word document containing my novel opened behind them) and out into the world.

Case in point: I woke up this morning after a weekend spent like jet lag: nights I couldn’t sleep and days I couldn’t stay awake. I was all set to spend Sunday in my pajamas with an episode of House running in the background of what was sure to be on the less-productive side of my productivity scale (yes, I have a productivity scale), when I got a call from a friend and an invitation to go on a hike.

My younger self would haved died at the mere suggestion of exerting myself to climb up a hill (mountain, actually), but this self was up and in the shower in five seconds flat–what had started out as a grey day spent indoors turned out to be the sunny fall day that had made this my favorite season long ago and that is a rarity here in the famously rainy and gray Basque region.

We set off in the car towards the border with France, and we soon reached Peñas de Aya, a mountain near the French border that, according to legend, was kicked up by a Basque mythical character called Sanson, inspired by the Biblical persona of Samson, a character I’ve loved ever since seeing the opera Samson and Delilah at fourteen and even more so ever since I discovered that Regina Spektor and I share the same soul.

It reminded me, strangely enough, of another famously cloudy city: San Francisco. When we moved there for a year, I was twelve, and my father used to pack the four of us (my youngest sister was six) into the green Land Cruiser he drove at the time to wind the snakey turns up to Muir Woods, just over the bridge in Marin County. He would force-march us through the mulchy trail, exclaiming over every massive Redwood, “Isn’t it incredible?” And it was… the first dozen times.

But here, I was the one exclaiming, the one whipping out my camera at every turn to take a picture of the pitching cliffs that extended over grassy fields and out to the towns nearby. From afar, we could see San Sebastian, like Rio with its Jesus standing over the city. It looked so small from up so high–it hardly seemed possible that the last six weeks could have been spent in a place so small, that everything I’d done and all the memories I’d created were restricted to that little town, which looked like a model town from Mr. Rodgers.


When we reached the top, we stood for awhile, looking out at the view, before another group, this time a group of Spaniards, plopped themselves down next to us and pulled out a packed lunch. They ripped pieces off of baguettes and made mini sandwiches with ham and cheese. They swigged wine directly from a bottle they passed around, a habit I had picked up long ago in Cannes that the French had always scoffed at, claiming that if they were ever caught at a picnic without glasses, they would forego the wine altogether.

Suddenly, we realized we were hungry.

Into the car we went, off towards the French border, which we crossed, our destination a tiny town called Sare in French and Sara in Spanish. When we arrived, I was struck by how different it seemed–the Spanish side of the Basque Country–el país vasco–seems just that: Basque. The French side, however, is strikingly, purely French. Perhaps less than Hendaye, which I had visited last year–at least here, the signs were posted in both French and Euskara, but I felt strangely back in my element as I ordered a café noisette instead of the café cortado I’ve become accustomed to ordering here in San Sebastian (both consist of a shot of espresso with just a little bit of foamed milk on top.)

To go with our coffee, we split a gâteau basque, a rich and buttery cake filled with a layer of either jam or cream–we opted for cherry jam, which was sweet and perfect against the sandy, barely sweet cake. The three of us finished a cake meant for four in record time and soon were back on our way towards Spain. With a bonne soirée instead of my now typical agur, we were back outside, stopping in at a small, local church before heading off on our way.

In the impeccably kept cemetery, we ran into a French woman devouring her own gâteau basque, this one filled with cream. She spoke no Spanish: although the border is only minutes away, people from each country tend not to be able to switch languages with as much facility as one might think. “I mean no disrespect to the cemetary,” I translated later for my English friends, “But it’s such a beautiful day.”

One thing had nothing to do with the other, and yet I understood.

October 12, 2009

Normal

Filed under: Pasta — Tags: , , — emiglia @ 2:57 pm

It’s strange to think about the things that have become a normal part of your life, and then to remember when they didn’t even exist on your radar.

I’m speaking specifically about the strange sensation that came over me as I Facebook stalked an old friend from high school (no, I am not ashamed) and then realized, through a series of strangely linked thoughts that sometimes happens when I’m sleep deprived, that she had no idea who The English One was. How strange, considering the fact that I spent hours upon hours napping in her bed and eating her food and walking back and forth to downtown Andover with her, and I had spent an equal amount of time since then with The English One. Unrelated friends, unrelated circumstances, but two different people who have made an impact on my life and who are completely unaware of the other’s existence.

My blog is a bit like that. In the past three years, it has become a part of my daily life: taking pictures of my food before I eat has become normal, and scratching down clever phrases I think of that I will later turn into incredibly witty, genius blog posts is habit. (OK, not the genius part… but I do write a lot of stuff down on the backs of receipts.)

The point is, things slowly become normal. Slowly, so slowly that you usually don’t notice it until it’s already happened. And then you turn around and look and see what your life has become, and only you know how different it is from what has already been and what will later be.

I notice this every time I move to a new city: I walk through the streets my first day there, taking in everything as new and unusual, and yet remaining constantly aware of the fact that in a matter of weeks, all that is new and strange to me now will be my new normal. That supermarket could be my supermarket. That crazy homeless man could be my crazy homeless man.

This is my 300th post. 300 times that I’ve sat down at my computer to ramble, post a recipe and a picture, and unleash it out onto the Internet to see what will become of it. When I first started, it was strange and new, but now it’s just the status quo… and I’ve loved every minute of it.

I’m very happy to integrate my 300th post with a project I hope as many of you as possible will contribute to: DonorsChoose.com is a website that connects people with school classrooms in need. Tomato Kumato is funding four projects that bring cooking to elementary school, something that I think is very important. To donate or to read more about the project, please visit the following link: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/viewChallenge.html?id=24617

As has become habit for me, I am posting something tomato-related on this landmark day for me. This is a new way of making pasta with tomato sauce, something I learned to do very recently but that has since replaced my old tomato-sauce making ways as the new normal, the new easy. And anyone who thinks it’s weird or off or not “right,” an Italian taught me how to do it this way. And if we can trust anyone with tomato sauce, I think it’s safe to say that an Italian may be the right person.

New Normal Pasta and Tomato Sauce
1 cup uncooked pasta
salt
1 cup tomate frito
1 clove garlic, peeled
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. dried basil

Bring a salted pot of water to a boil, and place the pasta in the pot. Allow to cook for 2 minutes, then drain, reserving the pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot with about 1/4 cup of the pasta water, the tomate frito, the garlic, the pepper and the basil.

Cook, stirring fairly continuously and adding pasta water by the 1/4 cupful as needed until the pasta is cooked al dente, about 7 minutes. Discard the garlic clove and serve. The pasta will absorb the tomate frito as it cooks. You can increase this recipe–it may take a few extra minutes–but do not increase the amount of water added at a time: it’s a fine line between silky smooth sauce and liquidy, soupy mess.

October 8, 2009

Escalivade

Filed under: Side Dishes, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , , , , , — emiglia @ 2:30 pm

I love to check out what other people are buying at the grocery store.

I know that most (read: normal) people would rather be doing their taxes, watching Paris Hilton speak about politics, listening to the Hamster Dance song on repeat… anything aside from waiting for the cashier to ring up their purchases, but I honestly do love it. It might be the people-watcher in me, but I think that looking to see what other people are buying is fascinating.

What is that man going to do, for example, with one orange, a tiny bottle of heavy cream, and a can of olives? Does that woman eat microwave pizza every night, or is she stocking up for the apocalypse? How many people are in that man’s family that he has to buy 20 pork chops? And how much did that scraggly, bloodshot young man smoke that he needs a frozen Mars bar, a family-sized bag of tortilla chips, a two-liter bottle of Coke and a bag of Carambars to come back down?

If someone were as interested as I am in what is passing in front of them on the conveyor belt to check out my purchases as of late, they would probably think I was a vegetarian: I’m not, and I haven’t been since 2005 (and even if I were, I doubt that I would have been able to keep it up in Spain, land of amazing seafood, incredible ham, and general use of pork products everywhere you look). But when I go shopping, I look like the poster child for that old-school food pyramid… the one I grew up with that actually looks like a pyramid, I mean.

This week, for example, as I emptied my shopping basket behind one woman’s selection of various sorts of ham, dry cereal and meal replacement bars and in front of a gentleman’s two bottles of dry white wine, one bottle of detergent and small loaf of seeded bread, I wondered what people would think of me? Ten pear-shaped tomatoes and three containers of cherry tomatoes, a bag each of apples and pears, a shrink-wrappd styrofoam flat of white button mushrooms, six cans of tuna, a bottle of tomate frito, a head of broccoli, two bags of grated carrots, a box of mushroom linguine and three glass jars of lima beans. You’d think I never ate a thing aside from vegetables… and canned tuna.

And while that’s not true (I just ventured into the world of pintxos making with a native Donostian chef last night, where everything was deep-fried, pork producty deliciousness), there is something to be said for filling your belly entirely with vegetables, for getting that satisfied feeling after having eaten just a touch too much, and knowing that all you’ve eaten is carrots and cucumber.

The urge to binge-eat out of the produce drawer starts to leave me as the weather gets cooler, but even though it’s been raining here–the skies opening and soaking you in five seconds or less–I’m still making meals out of tomatoes and lima beans and carrying around more apples in my purse than Johnny Appleseed.

This dish is typically Catalan–a different part of Spain, and something that I learned to make in Paziols (also in Catalogne/Cataloña). Summer vegetables are gathered and roasted with garlic and olive oil and then bathed in a simple vinaigrette made from Banyuls vinegar and fresh herbs. This is one of those dishes that is so much more than a sum of its parts, and it’s perfect for people like me, who make their meals entirely from vegetables.

Escalivade

250 g (1/2 lb.) tomatoes
250 g (1/2 lb.) eggplant
300 g (2/3 lb.) zucchini
300 g (2/3 lb.) red pepper
200 g (a bit less than 1/2 lb.) green pepper
200 g (a bit less than 1/2 lb.) yellow pepper
200 g (a bit less than 1/2 lb.) orange pepper
1 onion
3-4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp. fresh chives
4 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 small shallots, minced
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
freshly cracked black pepper
2-3 Tbsp. Banyuls vinegar, or good wine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and dry the vegetables. Seed the peppers and slice them into strips. Slice the eggplants and zucchini into strips of about the same size. Cut the tomatoes and onions into rounds.

Organize the vegetables in a baking dish any way you like (traditionally, you keep the like vegetables together, which makes for a prettier presentation.)

Dress the top of the dish with one tablespoon of the olive oil, and place the entire thing in the oven to roast for 30-40 minutes. Every so often, add a bit of water to the dish to keep the vegetables from burning.

When everything is cooked, allow to cool for a few minutes before removing the skins of the peppers. (Note: I don’t always do this step.)

Add the rest of the olive oil, the vinegar, the garlic, the shallots, the chives, the thyme and the pepper.

October 5, 2009

Decisions, decisions…

Filed under: Cakes — Tags: — emiglia @ 3:34 pm

I used to make decisions with no regard for anyone or really anything.

I’m not talking about little decisions, like whether to buy light wash or dark wash jeans or whether to order steak or fish: those decisions take painstaking deliberation and time and wringing of hands and other things that completely negate my nearly constant mantra of, “Emily, remember: you need to eradicate stress from your life.”

I’m talking about life-changing decisions: decisions to move somewhere, to buy a plane ticket for the weekend, to change my major, change my school. The decisions I should be wringing my hands over and tying my stomach in knots as I debate the pros and cons… those are the ones I tend to jump into blindly, like so many summers attempting back flips off the diving board. “Move to France? Sure, why not.”

That’s how it’s always happened in the past… so how did I get here?

Paris was over and done with for me at Christmas of 2008. I was ready to say my goodbyes, to move on to somewhere new: at the time, Naples was the place of choice, but I’ve since learned that the destination has little if anything to do with my desire to move. But in Paris I stayed, as months came and went, trying to stay in love with Paris and still sure that there was somewhere else I was meant to be, something else I was supposed to be trying.

I came to Spain as something temporary: my things stayed in Paris, and I kept my old address. And that’s how it always happens, or so I’ve learned. I felt the familiar creeping of my wanderlust, allowed it to come up from behind me and envelop me and announce my new destination with fanfare heard only by my ears: “Argentina. Go to Argentina.”

I don’t ask where these ideas come from… they just appear. (Name that 90s film…)

So why is it so hard this time? I’ve looked for jobs, announced my plans forcefully and happily to those around me. I’ve decided on a city, researched plane tickets, and tried to figure out if I’ll have enough money to both eat and buy a second-hand surf board (the answer is barely, but I’ll survive).

And yet, there’s something clawing at me, something new. Something that isn’t letting me make this decision as easily as some of my others. Part of me, I think, is afraid that if I head down to South America, that will be the end of Europe for me. And as much as I love to move, to delve into the next big thing, I’ve been living in Europe for nearly three years, and had my heart in Europe for much longer.

And then there’s the other worry, the one that’s always there, that accompanies the ticking clock of my 18-month itch: the knowledge, as little as I want to allow it to be there, that I can’t do this forever. Someday, I’ll have to end up somewhere, and the endless list of places that I’ve always told myself I’ll live someday–Naples, Ireland, Arizona, Vermont, Australia–will be suddenly cut short. I am struck with the realization that picking the next place on the list may also be picking the last: each time I do this, it only gets harder, and I’m going to have to stop somewhere. How do I know that that place will be the right one?

Decisions aren’t easy… and they’re only getting harder. Which is why, when all is said and done, it is crucial to my existence to have a few things to fall back on. These brownies are one of those things: something I can whip up and be sure that each time they will be amazing and leave other people swooning, distracting them from the whirring of my decision making inside my own crazy head.

Archetypal Brownies

Note: This recipe comes, as so many great ones do, via Molly aka Orangette. I can’t leave well enough alone, so I add a tablespoon of strog coffee to the batter and sometimes a quarter teaspoon of cayenne, cinnamon or nutmeg. I can’t very well commit to a decision, now can I?

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter
4 ounces best-quality unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs

Optional : 1 Tbsp. strong coffee OR 1/4 tsp. cinnamon OR 1/4 tsp. cayenne OR 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Center a rack in the oven, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt; set aside.

Melt the butter and the chocolate together in the top of a double boiler over—but not touching—simmering water (or in a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water), stirring frequently. When the chocolate and butter are both melted and smooth, add 1 cup of the sugar to the mixture, and stir it for 30 seconds; then remove the mixture from the heat, and stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.

Put the remaining 1 cup sugar and the eggs into a medium bowl, and whisk by hand to combine. Little by little, pour half of the sugar and eggs into the chocolate mixture, stirring gently but constantly with a rubber spatula so that the eggs don’t scramble from the heat. Beat the remaining sugar and eggs on medium speed until they are thick, pale, and doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Using the rubber spatula, gently fold the whipped eggs and sugar into the chocolate mixture. When the eggs are almost completely incorporated, gently fold in the dry ingredients.

Pour and scrape the batter into an unbuttered 8-inch square pan (I’ve found a heavy nonstick metal brownie pan to be ideal, although the original recipe recommends ceramic or glass). Bake the brownies for 25-28 minutes, during which time they will rise a bit and the top will turn dry and a bit crackly. After 23 minutes, stick a knife or toothpick into the center to see how they are progressing. They should be just barely set—not too raw, but still fairly gooey (mine generally take the full 28 minutes, if not a touch more). Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack. When they’re completely cool, cut them into rectangular bars to serve.

October 3, 2009

Early Morning Carrot Soup

Filed under: Soup — Tags: , , , — emiglia @ 3:54 pm

I’ve always liked mornings.

In recent years, I may not have been around to greet them as much–college will do that to you–but I’ve always liked them. I remember walking to school at 7 am when we lived on the West Side and crossing paths with what seemed to me to be a completely different brand of person: up at dawn, running decked out in head to toe spandex or walking their dogs. I wanted to be a part of it.

I never have been, though: instead, I found my own kind of morning, the kind that reminds me of Holly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, when she says something akin to, “I’ve never gone out this early before, unless it was because I hadn’t been home yet.”

It started at boarding school, nights of staying up studying but mostly not studying, cuddled up in duvets and blankets with greasy paper bags of fourth-meal popcorn, and suddenly seeing the snow outside change color and realizing that the sun was coming up. I still remember wandering through the days that followed in a daze, feeling as though everything was upside down and backwards because I missed that break between today and yesterday.

It continued in college, but in a different way: we worked on a noctournal clock, staying up all night playing Mario Kart and making 4 am runs to 24-hour Tim Hortons, where we would play cards and drink coffee in our pajamas with the rest of the misfits–a bearded man in a yellow poncho comes to mind, a man who had the largest collection of plastic bags I’ve ever seen, one stuffed into another stuffed into another, like so many Russian dolls.

When the sun started to come up, we were always shocked: shocked to realize we had really stayed out so late, shocked by the biting cold of an early Toronto morning. Sometimes, we would just head home and collapse into bed, but more often than not, we would finish off a long night with a lazy breakfast: a few places opened early, and at least one was opened 24 hours. I would order a pot of coffee and something distinctly un-breakfast like. It’s hard to get in the mood for breakfast when you haven’t even been to bed yet.

I had a flashback to mornings like that today, when I wandered home at 9 am after a night of talking and cat naps and watching the sunrise over La Concha bay. I saw my streets–I remember just a few weeks ago, when I had that now-familiar thought that strikes me every time I move somewhere new, “Soon, all of this will be normal for me.” And it is, usually, which is why in the early morning, with a slightly less biting but no less present cold, struck me off guard, my world turned upside down.

Like back in college, I needed something hot and filling, something distinctly un-breakfast like. Something easy.

This soup was thrown together from things that were already in my kitchen… At nine o’clock in the morning, the rest of the world is still asleep you can’t just wander into the grocery store. It’s warm and comforting and slightly surprising from the kick of the spices. I love the way that the carrot juice makes the potatoes sweet.

Carrot and Potato Soup

3 carrots
2 small potatoes or large new potatoes
1 cup carrot juice
1 cup chicken broth
1 tsp. curry powder
1-2 dried cayenne peppers or 1/2 tsp. cayenne chili flakes
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Slice the carrots into half moons and cut the potatoes into bite-sized chunks. Add all of the ingredients to a saucepan and heat over medium heat, covered, for 30 minutes. Stir every so often, and add water if the broth becomes too concentrated (this is a matter of taste). When the potatoes are cooked through, carry your bowl to the window and watch the sunrise as you eat.

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