Suvianda has stepped up their dessert game

-in a big way.
Cheesecake with coffee whipped cream and a chocolate covered strawberry. It's not Stella, but it's baller. (I can describe food as "baller" now that I'm not doing this for a grade.)

Spotted in Downtown San Jose

Hawaiian Walk-Inn, 7th and Santa Clara



Carrot and bell pepper palm tree in the produce section of Suvianda today.
(There's a mirror behind it.)

curry sweet potato fries

these sound so good..i hope i get a chance to make them soon.

http://s35.photobucket.com/albums/d159/drawnnotions/?action=view¤t=IMG_0003.jpg

(found at "food and you" @blogspot)

New Orleans Food Culture

(photos taken by Michael Huen)
I think an appropriate last entry would concern my favorite foodcentric city-New Orleans. I had a chance to visit New Orleans in 2007 for an alternative spring break trip. We went to help with the recovery effort about 18 months after the hurricane and I had a really awesome, yet frustrating experience.

One of the most memorable parts of the trip was the food. From the beignets (French doughnuts) at cafe du monde to the giant muffaletta sandwiches to fried everything. The way that the people of the greater New Orleans area showed their appreciation to us was through food. I was with a group of people who were gutting a house that hadn't been touched since days before the hurricane. The family had fled to Houston and had not been able to return. During our lunch breaks, we would eat MREs, "meals ready to eat," provided by a Christian charity and the army. They were gross, but fascinating. There were thousands of calories in these inventive meals(not to mention utensils and condiments) that were packed into a small container. By some magical chemical reaction, you could heat the food up with water in the flameless ration heater--crazy.

After a few days we decided we couldn't eat another MRE. On our lunch break, we found a little mom and pop diner on the side of a road. We all had our volunteer t-shirts on and I'm sure we were looking the worse for wear. I didn't expect to find anything vegetarian on the whole trip so I was looking for the grilled cheese on every menu. On this menu, I order fried pickles. They really do fry everything in the south. We were treated so well at this place--at first we attributed it to southern hospitality but we sooned realized that people were thanking us in the best way they knew how, through hearty food.
After a table near us had left, the waitress came over and told us that the woman who was sitting there had paid for our lunch--all six of us. Then, the owner came over and said he wanted to show us something. (above) He led us to the back and showed us the fresh seafood catch from that very morning. He said he was going to cook some up for us, we waited and he came over with a giant plate of fresh seafood. The staff gave us hugs as we left and thanked us for coming, it was totally surreal.
We relayed our experience to the rest of the group when we got back that night and everyone was really surprised at the generosity.

The next day, the entire group was out to lunch (all 18 of us.) Once again, awesome staff and service at an out-of-the-way place. A woman came in to pick up her lunch to go, after she left, the waitress came up to say that she had paid for part of our bill. We were pretty taken aback. We were treated with so much kindness and it almost always had something to do with food.

I think this experience sort of sparked my curiosity and fascination with food culture. I love to read about what food means to people as far as their cultural identity-especially in the south. I was reminded of all of this recently by a February 2nd article entitled New Orleans: Eating its Way to Recovery (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28935341/)by F. Brinley Bruton. Bruton describes New Orleans food culture thus,

If my family were totally honest we would admit that food is our religion. It’s our most important pastime, our biggest obsession and greatest source of pleasure and strife. Food was the biggest reason our disparate clan put down roots in New Orleans, a place that has transformed food, drink and generally carrying on into high art.

Oh New Orleans, where else can you find this combination of French, Native American, Caribbean, Spanish and African cuisine, all melded together with distinctly American fare? I would love to live there, to study there. In fact, most people don't know that nothing would make me happier than living in the south and cooking all day, maybe running an apiary and living in an old house. On the other hand, my practicality kicks in when I think of southern cooking. It is so unhealthy! It's all white bread--literally, sandwiches are made of entire loaves of white bread stuffed with fried seafood. Oil, breading, creamy sauces...these are the essence of southern cooking. I have not yet resolved my desire for a healthier America and my love for comfort food and heart-killing southern food. Maybe someday...

update.

I'm finishing up my blog entries before I have to turn it in tomorrow. This means that the page is going to look different for a little while. I've had a good time writing these entries, so I'll probably keep it up after tomorrow. I might not write again for awhile though, finals are over May 20th and then I'll have all summer to write to my heart's content...

Nopales (no-pall-ehs)

Nopales, or cactus pads (leaves), have been at the top of my Wanted Foods List for awhile. They are right above cooking with banana leaves. They always have fresh nopales at Suvianda for super cheap and they carry jars of nopalitos as well. As far as I understand, diced and cooked nopales are called nopalitos (the -ito again...)

I talked to some of the cooks at work and they recommended sauteing nopales, I tried a couple of ways of cooking them today. I boiled and sauteed some cleaned, de-thorned, and chopped nopales. I made a chipotle pepper sauce by putting 2 chipotle peppers, fresh red pepper, garlic, salt, pepper, and tomato in the food processor. Then I served them with black beans and sauteed red peppers and onions and avocado.

After reading about nopales a little bit, I think they are a fairly neutral food that people traditionally pair with more flavorful food, like spicy chipotle sauce.
The texture is a lot like a sauteed green bell pepper but they are a little bit sour.

The thorns made me a little nervous, but they keep tongs near the nopales in the grocery store and I just had to kind of knock and scrape the thorns off with a big knife. The leaves ooze a mucous type of liquid after they've been cut.

So they mystery is gone, nopales are not too difficult to work with. I might pair them with some eggs someday (the popular juevos con nopales), but I can't eat eggs right now because I'm so sick of them from Easter weekend.

Nutritionally, the nopales are pretty good for you. They have dietary fiber, a low glycemic index, low carbs, and a good amount of Vitamin A and C and minerals.

Where does my food come from?

I try to be fairly conscious of where my food is coming from--both for environmental and taste reasons. I spent a few days taking down the origins of some of the common foods that I eat.

What I learned is that it's really difficult to track where your food comes from, especially if it's processed in any way. It took a really long time to figure out where my Honey Nut Cheerios are from. In the end, I think they're from somewhere in Illinois, but I'm not sure. Basically, everything that's owned by General Mills just has the corporate headquarters for General Mills on the back, not where the ingredients came from or where it was made.

I was pretty disappointed in Berkeley Farms. I buy a lot of BF products and I kind of assumed they were all from this part of California--I guess it was the Berkeley name that sort of distracted me from really checking the labels. In reality, the products are from several places, and my favorite milk, "Over the Moon" fat free milk is actually processed in Texas. Even though I love the Over the Moon, I think I might make the switch back to Clover Stornetta, their products all come from the same area in California.

As far as produce, about half of them had a sticker with the area of origin on it. Many did not--pears, oranges, tomatoes, potatoes, etc., I never know where they come from if they aren't from the farmers market.

Overall, I think I do pretty well in getting my food from California, but I realized that a lot of my food comes from Central and South America as well. I think that a lot of my produce is from Mexico because I shop at Suvianda most of the year. Luckily, it's almost prime farmers market season so I can do better at eating local.