On the Road – Page 2 – Experiments in my New World Kitchen and Garden

On the Road: Veracruz and Why It’s Possibly My Favorite Spot on Earth

Delicious, beautiful, exotic. Did I say delicious? I meant to.
I don’t have favorites but if you were to invite me to Veracruz I would only hesitate for a few seconds. I think it might be Mexico’s most beautiful state. It runs along the coast and it feels Mexican but it’s like nowhere else in the country.

Papantla smells of vanilla and heat. It’s a little off putting at first but the best thing to do is just roll with it. For me, breakfast with salsa macha means the rest of the day will be mild in comparison. It’s a humbling sauce and I’ve had luck eating it with beans, white one in particular.

Huevos Enzopilotados are scrambled eggs with black beans. The salsa macha completes the dish.

Near by are the ruins of El Tajin. We laughed at how hot it was. The heat and humidity were so intense it was funny. Or at least it is now. My friends Yunuen and Gabriel and I love to climb and discover Mexican archaeological sites and this is one of the best.

Heading south along the coast are many beach towns. Not so chic but the beaches are fine and good food and music are never far off.

We do actually work on these trips as part of the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project. In Veracruz is Casa Stivalet and they produce the magnificent banana vinegar we sell.

Leaving the coast, the town of Jalapa is worth a two day visit. The museum is one of the best and of course there are particular dishes to the region.

Another time we’ll have to discuss the city of Veracruz.

The Simplest and Best Soup I Know and the Trick to Make It Magnificent

If you love beans, you want beans. You don’t want a lot of other things getting in the way. But if you’re making soup, you do need to do something. My answer is to fry stale tortilla strips. I know for most of us, frying isn’t something we do everyday. It can be messy and if you don’t use the oil again, it’s seems wasteful. I have a very small cast iron skillet and it’s perfect for a small bit of frying. I also have peanut oil in an old wine bottle that I keep in the fridge between uses. I tend to use the same oil three or four times over the course of a month.

It’s a slight hassle but something magical happens when you fry corn in the form of tortillas. And if you add it to the soup as a crouton, it has a wonderful texture and taste. The rest of the soup is so simple, fried tortilla strips don’t seem like much of an indulgence.

Recipe: Sopa de Moro

1/2 yellow onion, chopped medium
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound Rancho Gordo Moro beans, cleaned and rinsed
Sea salt
3 corn tortillas, preferably a little stale, cut into very thin strips
Oil for frying
1 teaspoon Rancho Gordo Oregano Indio
Limes for garnish

In a large pot, saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil on medium heat until soft, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add the beans and cover with about 2 inches of water. Turn the heat to high and bring to a full, rapid boil for 15 minutes.

Turn the heat to low and allow the beans to gently simmer. Make sure the beans are always covered by about 2 inches of liquid, adding new water as needed. Cold water can seize the beans and slow down the cooking process, so it’s best to have a tea kettle or a pan with warm water on hand to add as needed.

After about an hour, the beans should begin to soften. Add a tablespoon of sea salt and allow the beans to continue cooking until done. Total time will be between an hour and a half and 3 hours. If it’s taking too long, turn up the heat.

While the beans are cooking, heat the oil in a skillet and fry the tortilla strips in the hot oil until crispy. Allow them to drain on paper towels and salt generously.

When the beans are soft, correct the seasoning and add the teaspoon of Oregano Indio. Ladle into bowls and top with the tortilla strips.
Serve with limes.

N.B. I used Moro beans because I love them and I had them in my pantry. You could do this with most any bean. The ones with the best bean broth would be the wise choices.

A slightly different version of this appeared in our newsletter using Rebosero beans.

Eating Goat in Tehuacan: Mole de Caderas

For many reasons, this post won’t be for my vegetarian and vegan friends. For many reasons.

I was in the Valley de Tehuacan with Yunuen and Gabriel from Xoxoc. We were there to visit Lourdes, who makes our wonderful bean pots, cazuelas, comales and steamers, all out of the local clay. More on her later. We arrived in Tehuacan just in time for comida, the main meal of the day. We also happened to arrive in October, which is the month of the slaughter of the local goats and the town celebrates by making a dish called Mole de Caderas. Apparently it is quite long and involved but from the taste of things, it’s totally worth it.

Our meal started out with a rice course and the cooking liquid is at least in part the consume from the cooked goat.

The next course means I can check off another item from the bucket list I’ve never bothered to make. These are goat udders. Yes, you read that correctly. Ubres a la plancha with garlic and onions. I don’t think I’ll be hunting this down again for my next trip but they were fine and really, if you’re going to eat an animal, you should try not and be queasy about it.

My complexion in the photo with Gabriel looks a bit like I’m having a heart attack but I was very sunburnt from a day in the thermal water in Hidalgo. I’m tickled to be with my pals and eating good food.

The main event was the mole itself and it was a huge bowl and 100% delicious. I don’t eat enough goat to know how the bones work but there was a lot of delicous meat and the thin, soupy mole was a knockout. It was almost like a sporting even but I did manage to get most of it eaten. Following this with a good mezcal and then a siesta made it an almost perfect day.

Visiting the Mixteca Salt Mines in Zapotitlan Salinas

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Last week I was in Zapotitlan Salinas in Puebla with our Xoxoc partners. We stopped to see the salt flats again and as you can see, it’s really a strange, beautiful and wonderful place.

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Land salt has been harvested here since long before the conquest. The salt cooks beans faster than normal and it’s great with vegetables as it keeps them green. A little is great. Too much and you have pudding.

Rancho Gordo Mixteca salt is available online, in our stores and from better retailers nationwide.

Rancho Gordo at the Eat Real Festival 2015

I’m not a huge fan of big public festivals. I like dinner parties and maybe a good Boz Scaggs concert. But the annual Eat Real Festival in Oakland is easy to like. You can just smell the entrepreneur spirit among the different vendors and I find it inspiring. I love helping smart people who are coming up and this place is loaded with them. There are some sad, doomed ideas but on the whole, this place is fun and dedicated to good food. It can get a little preachy but you just smile and nod as you munch on your banh mi sandwich or tuna ceviche tostada.

I think the kids call this “Resting Bitch Face”. Here’s mine as our panel called Wonders of Legumes is about to begin. Despite my lovely appreance, I was pleased as punch to be on this panel with Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground, Minh Tsai of Hodo Soy Beanery, lentil farmer David Oien of Timeless Natural Food and Dr. Lawrence Kushi of Kaiser Permanente. All of these folks were really smart and I learned quite a bit.

I was with my son Nico and we had just enough time for lunch at one of the many vendors and then it was off to do a Pasta e Fagioli demonstration with my old pal Renato Sardo of Baia Pasta. I’ve known Renato casually for years but our making August unofficially Pasta e Fagioli month has made me really appreciate the work he’s doing with his partner, Dario Barbone, at Baia Pasta. This demo was kind of a swan song for our promotions, at least until next August.

Poor Renato did all of the cooking and I just stood around asking questions and telling stories. The heat was incredible and unrelenting. I will insist on an air-conditioned dressing room and proper hair and make up people next year. I’m sure they will be glad to accommodate!

Despite the heat, we really had fun. It’s a day dedicated to the best in food and there are so many ideas, your head will swim. There’s a very limited marketplace as well and I discovered a lot of interesting food producers that I had no idea were doing such interesting things. I would say pickled things and chocolate are pretty saturated but there’s a world of good food out there to discover.

Here’s my million dollar idea: Do a small showcase for the best local food artisans. It doesn’t have to be ambitious but it has to be great. It has to be strictly curated and it should include ingredients, not just prepared food. And then invite Rancho Gordo and Baia Pasta.

(all photos: Nico Sando)

Chile Farmers in the Yucatan

A legacy post from 2011:

A Postcard from Yucatan
Still in Merida with my friends and business partners, Yunuen and Gabriel of Xoxoc, we took a side trip with our friends Delfina and Elidae from Semilla de Dioses. They took us to the small village of Chaksikin. It was small but charming with all kinds of housing from wood huts to McMansions, of a sort.

The main chiles of the growers here are the lucrative habaneros and a chile called Chile Verde, which is mostly used dried.

This co-op has about 11 members. Among themselves they spoke Mayan.

We met with the men for quite a long time. They are very slow to warm up to strangers and I think having Elidae and Delfina with us helped. In fact, I know it did.

I’m not sure where all this will lead but it does seem like chiles will really be our next big project. With increasing production in China and decreasing farmers in Mexico, unable to compete, it seems like we need to start importing more of the dried chiles that make Mexican food so great. The problem is that the U.S. government has really strict rules on importing chiles and it’s not going to be easy.

And yet here I stand with two of my best friends in the world, in a chile field, and I feel completely at home. It makes too much sense not to pursue this!

Noodles, Beans and Memories

I think it’s clear how much fun I’ve been having cooking pasta and beans this month. Along with the terrific dishes, which are all very easy to do once you understand the rhythm, I’ve been flooded with memories of Italy.

The power of being a young person, coming into his own, in Europe, is a not to be dismissed lightly. Or forgotten easily!

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In my early 20s, I would work very hard, save up my money and then go for a good fling in Italy. I did this many times. Most of my friends were well-traveled and Europe wasn’t a stranger to them but New York was a constant and I just couldn’t care less about it. New York was like San Francisco, where I lived, just better (or maybe just bigger.) Italy and France were other worlds to me. I couldn’t get enough.

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Fortunately, I made friends with Italians, and that meant meeting their mothers, and you can guess where this is going. Sitting at an Italian table with lovely people who are eager to share their hospitality was game changing. I wanted this. I think I’ve spent most of my adult life pursuing the American version of this. A lot of us do it well but plate after plate of Signora Saperdi’s Ligurian food or the delicate gnocchi from Signora Prato’s hands in Roma were tough acts to follow.

It was a lifetime, and many pounds ago, but it made me who I am. All of the things we seem to be learning now, like the importance of good ingredients, the enjoyment of eating a good, slow meal with people that matter, laboring over good technique and possibly most important, giving of yourself and sharing your kitchen, for the benefit of others, the Italians have been on to for generations. It’s part of being human. Eating alone on a TV tray is a compromise. You can do it and sometimes it’s a nice break, but a table full of people enjoying themselves is about as good as it gets. To know you helped orchestrate it in some way, even if you just brought the ice, is true joy. It makes you a part of something bigger than yourself.

Grazie, Italia.

Making Carnitas

A master carnitas maker adds fresh orange juice to his cauldron. Actually they’re called cazos but I think cauldron works, too!

Go big or go home, I guess!

(This photo is from our Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project Ag Tour earlier this year, in Hidalgo)

Your Secret Ingredient: Oregano Indio

Did you know our Oregano Indio is back in stock? The cooperative had all kinds of trouble getting it to us but now we have lots and the future looks bright.

Did you see this video about the people who grow and harvest your oregano? I would watch it with you but I can’t see it without starting to cry. It’s a happy kind of crying. Some people are just wonderful and are trying to do the right thing.

Homeward from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.

Buy Oregano Indio at Rancho Gordo.

An Insider’s Guide to Mexico City

You can imagine how many people call me for good information on Mexico City. The town has so much buzz, and for good reason. It's a little intimidating if you've never been or don't have high school Spanish behind you but it's not impossible and you are likely to have an amazing time.

My first real trip was in the 1990s. I went alone before a friend good meet me later in the week. I had callouses on my feet from walking everywhere. I remember walking down a sunny street in the Centro, passed a Licuado store selling Mexican smoothies. I'll admit there was a skip in my step. I was independent and having a wonderful time. As I passed, a young girl yelled out from inside the store, "¡Buenas dias, guapo!" This was followed by giggling and I felt like I was on top of the world.

I feel stupid when people ask for suggestions. All the regular recommendations are probably essential for a first time visit. The museums, the parks, Frida and Diego's house, etc, are all great. For me, meals at Contramar and Pujol are necessary but I can think of 10 other places that deserve your attention. The reality is that these days when I am in Mexico, my friends normally pick me up at the airport and whisk me off on some journey. I haven't had a chance to linger in D.F. for years.

This is why I love Jim Johnston's Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler. Jim has lived there for many years and seems to know exactly what I'll need. It's great armchair reading and even better to take with you. The 16 walking tours will make you feel like a local in no time.