Hi-Lo Latin Grocery, Hyde Square-ish

Despite its poor online reviews, the Hi-Lo I found this Friday afternoon was delightful. A little jumbled, but relatively clean, with no offensive smells. Produce looked excellent, though somewhat limited - perhaps the result of winter? Five limes for $1, bunches of large bananas, prodigious amounts of pineapple. Tamarind pods, fresh herbs in plastic for .99 cents. Watercress and beautiful striped eggplants, which I bought. Piles of avocados and potatoes for cheap. Plantains, cassava? Onions and attractively priced garlic.

Fresh-baked breads which smelled so luscious, I bought two. I've already eaten one baguette. I looked at some exciting pineapple marmalade, big Jamaican water crackers jumbled in in a bag like cookies, blocks of orange-scented sugar, tablets of Mexican hot chocolate, pickled hearts of palm and pickled flower buds. The aisle of beans and rice, the wall of tortillas and related breads/pastries. Goya items galore, Goya everything, and dozens of different hot sauces. Chinese salsa = soy sauce, English salsa = Worcestershire sauce?! Normally expensive items priced low: vinegar, molasses, allspice, cinnamon sticks. The snack and candy aisle was very entertaining and will be an excellent source of crunchy novelties ("Yellow Cheese Marbles, no trans fats! Banana Jelly Rolls! Guava cakelets!). The meat at the back of the store was non-offensive in odor, and looked fresh as I passed by. The frozen section is very small, with savory pork empanadas and frozen fried plantains taking over. Also a well-stocked area of pineapple and coconut flaky dessert pastries.

The ice cream section was small and not well stocked, but I did see a Breyer's Fried Ice Cream option, which I am sorely tempted to sample. There were ice cream sandwiches, and small boxes of the usual flavors: strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, and mint.

I'm definitely going again. I missed the dairy department, but did see a selection of fresh queso blanco sorts of soft cheeses. I feel this is rich and potentially underutilized cheap grocery resource! Thanks, Hi-Lo - you are better than I had imagined. Marry me.

Schnitzel, anyone?

Something just occurred to me. My post-run snack is a bowl of roasted brussel sprouts (mini cabbage), sausage, and mushrooms stacked on top of stale pumpernickel chunks. I am eating like...a medieval European peasant. Maybe even Eastern European peasantry. Or Irish peasantry.

You know, it's not bad. I could use a little borscht with this. Or vegetarian goulash? Maybe some braided bread, or a dessert involving poppy seed paste. Whiskey, kidney pie (ugh). Uh, bread pudding. Potato/cauliflower gratin with bleu cheese - now we're talking. Fiddleheads and chanterelles, bitches.

The picture is Russian borscht in a can. Found by Googling "borscht", I admit.

Brussels Sprouts Redux

More roasting, more sprouts! This time I added the obligatory fennel bulb in thick slices, plus thickly sliced portabella caps, a head of garlic, and slices of sweet chicken sausage.

Yes, sweet chicken sausage. There's no picture, because it looks gross all jumbled up in the Pyrex tray, with the tinfoil. See, I was so hungry while I was at the co-op, I impulse-purchased Ben and Jerry's froyo - Fudge Brownie - and a package of sweet teriyaki organic chicken sausage.

So, it could have been worse. I chopped up the pre-cooked sausage and roasted with veggies. I am hoping that the slight bitterness of sprouts will mingle well with sweet sausage, sweet fennel, and earthy mushrooms. I'll let you know how it goes.

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It's a great combination! TASTY. However, the chocolate Froyo is disappointing, and a little gritty.
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Also, my cell phone's email and picture-sending ability has been down for a few days. My provider spent some time fixing the problem, but now - IT'S FIXED! So good. So now I can send myself pictures from my trip to visit Smash in BKLN. Here's a picture of the strawberry/Cool Whip pie that nearly killed me. (I had two slices. One after breakfast. I had serious nostalgia happening! My Mom was way into Cool Whip back in the day.) That was Serious Vacation Pie. Thanks, Kim!

Probably Too Quorny

Recently I became aware that there is a Quorn fanpage on Facebook. Quorn is a mycoprotein - a modified form of edible fungus, in other words - mixed with egg whites and other non-vegan things. Quorn is the mock-meat that tastes most like chicken, IMHO. Quorn even has the slightly fibrous texture of muscle tissue, in a "chicken meat" sort of way. It makes a great Thanksgiving "roast" and looks surprisingly like chicken or turkey medallions when the space-age loaf is sliced and served. Quorn is a pleasure for me to eat, even though I'm not exactly sure how they make it.

You can buy different varieties of Quorn these days, all of which fall into two major categories: Breaded (crunchy coating), and Unbreaded (naked).

In the Unbreaded category, you can get small stir-fry Quorn chunks in a bag and naked cutlets for grilling or sauteeing; you can also get the excellent Quorn Roast. In the Breaded category, you've got the very-appealing original crunchy nuggets, Southwestern Style spicy crunchy nuggets, Crunchy Patties, Crunchy Cutlets with Gruyere Sauce, and Crunchy Cutlets with Goat Cheese and Cranberries.

I think that's all of them, so far. I really enjoy all Crunchy Breaded Quorn incarnations for ease of preparation; after microwaving them until hot, I can crisp them up in a pan and serve. Excellent EXCELLENT substitute for poultry, high in protein, and also somewhat high in fat - results in good mouthfeel?

The Quorn website is here.

Giving Brussels Sprouts Another Try

My food for the coming week is not photogenic, but so far it's tasty: garlic linguine topped with cooked arugula + roasted tofu cubes with roasted tomatoes and crimini mushrooms and quartered brussels sprouts. The aforementioned sprouts are very well-done, and I am happy about this. I am going to try very hard to digest these mini-cabbages without difficulty! I feel that cooking them longer may make them easier to digest.

So far, the brussel sprouts are the tastiest part of this melange, with an intriguing bitter/sweet/green finish. Here is a Barefoot Contessa recipe for Roasted Brussels Sprouts; this is basically how I prepared my sprouts, in addition to roasting them to a state of near-creaminess.

Also, tossing drained/squeezed tofu cubes with garlic oil salt and some herbs and then roasting them at 400° is excellent! The tofu dehydrates and develops a chewy golden-brown crust. Very nice. I will roast 'fu again. Perhaps I can invent a fatty tofu/potato gratin of some kind...ah, the winter wonder of monochrome food.

Picture of Brussels Sprouts from www.lesliebeck.com

I Want Dessert, I Want It Now!

You know, "puppy chow" is what you get when you mix melted chocolate and peanut butter (or butterscotch chips), and then pour it over Chex cereal. Then you can coat those bastards in powdered sugar and refrigerate, and you get a crunchy chocolate treat. That somehow looks like dog kibble, I guess.

So I ran out of Chex cereal the other day, having gone overboard with my own batch of "puppy chow". But I did have some bran flakes...so, yes, I went there. Chocolate-covered bran flakes with almonds and a little tangerine curd instead of peanut butter. Why not!

Then I put it on top of ice cream. You know, it's not bad. Original "Puppy chow" is more compelling with its unstoppable crunch and salty-sweet balance, but the chocolate-covered bran flakes on 1/2 fat double-churned Breyer's vanilla ice cream are pretty okay. I give it 7.5 stars out of 10. It would be 8 stars out of 10 if the bran flakes were crunchy instead of stale. But you can't have everything.

The picture of "Puppy chow" is from www.makelifedelicious.com - thank you!

Beets and Beetery

Sadly I forgot to take a picture. But I bought some beets, some fennel bulbs, and some mixed baby greens (spinach, arugula, mache...etc, etc). I roasted the beets in a little foil packet, away from the quartered fennel. I cut off the very perky-looking beet greens, rinsed away their grit, and wilted them with some fresh garlic and olive oil and cayenne. Combined them with some of the mixed greens, too. AMAZING greens, tasty roasted beets! It's a one-two punch of scrump. Why doesn't everyone eat beets all the time? Maybe I'll write a book about beets. I'll be the Michael Pollan/Mark Kurlansky of beets. Maybe even of unpopular vegetables: fennel, celery, chard? Sorrel? The multiple varieties of bokchoy? Mustard and dandelion greens?!

There is a whole world out there. I just need a cup of strong tea and a guide to non-fiction book proposals. Good thing I work in a LIBRARY. The book I need is magically already in my hands.

Enthusiasm for research aside: I am also eating a delicious tomato, mushroom, arugula and eggplant sauce. I'm going to call it Magic Pizza Sauce until I think of a better name. JB introduced me to it, and it has become one of my favorite food items ever since. The complexity, the richness! High in nutrition, high in taste. Great mouth-feel. It's perfect. All one needs is some good ingredients, some good olive oil, a food processor and a sauté pan. Awesome.

This recipe for Beet Greens from the NY Times is basically how I made my greens. Picture of the fennel bulb from www.gourmetsleuth.com - thank you.

Red Naval Oranges: the Cara Cara

About a week ago I bought a single red Cara Cara Naval orange from the supermarket. I love all citrus, and I especially love the reliable, sweet, seedless Naval orange. So why not try a red version? Blood oranges are tasty, so I was thinking a Cara Cara would be something similar. Or better!

The Cara Cara is a random mutation, according to Wikipedia's page on the Cara Cara Red Naval Oranges. I found the orange to be easy to peel, and striking in color. Attractive, similar in flesh to a ruby grapefruit or pommelo. Eating it was like eating a juicy Naval orange, except with a slightly different finish. Maybe I was just imagining a pommelo-like finish due to the color? Anyhow, it was good. I'd buy it again, especially on sale!

This is an excellent moment to recommend reading John McPhee's short book, Oranges. All the stuff about growing oranges in America that you didn't know - and it's all weirdly interesting, too. At least, I enjoyed it very much.

Lapsang? Souchong! Lapsang... Souchong!

That's right, to the tune of "Marco? Polo!".

I was all bleary and parched and tired this morning, but dragged myself off for a run after some cereal. I didn't drink any tea beforehand, and I think this is at least partially what caused my lackluster run. My legs felt heavy, my breakfast was sloshing around in my stomach, I had to pee, and I wasn't feeling the usual euphoria. Even though the snow was sparkly, fresh, and absolutely brilliant.

So home I trudged, showered, put my lunch together, grabbed a packet of lapsang souchang smoked tea, and headed out. Drank the tea at work. And now I feel super! Euphoric, zippy, perky. Hello, caffeine! So perhaps I am addicted to tea after all, and it was hubris to assume I could happily run without my morning cup!?

Remembered how much I enjoy lapsang when I sipped some at New Shanghai in Chinatown, with JB. Good stuff - tastes like a campfire, and packs a good punch.

Truffled Walnuts

You know what makes a great gift? Chocolate-coated, cocoa-dusted roasted walnuts from Whole Foods. So tasty, so crunchy, I ADORE these things! I love them so much, I would put them in my Desert Island Duffel as a supplement to emergency island rations.

For those with nut allergies, I apologize. I especially enjoy eating them in three slow, small bites.

The Lady of Shallot

Woke up this morning in the middle of a food dream. I was convinced that scallops and shallots were somehow the same food item, and that somebody was trying to trick me into thinking they were two separate foods.

Scallops. And shallots. You can kind of hear where my mind was going with that.

Here's a link to the John Williams Waterhouse painting, The Lady of Shalott.