Just good food...

Dear Amigos,
It's a been a while since I've last posted and I still have not completed my European honeymoon diaries yet, but still to come.  I must say that other things have happened since that have inspired new blog posts, so I am planning to go with the flow of my creativity, and see where my writing takes me.  These days have been hot and we have tried to cook at home as much as possible, for both economic reasons (our 2-month European extravaganza set up back a pretty penny) and to learn to cook well and on our own.  As we both so firmly believe, most things you can eat in a restaurant, we can cook also... and we know what was put into each dish.  Below I would like to include some of my favorite dishes that we have made over the last few weeks...

Above:  Cold homemade gazpacho, Italian cheeses, sardines from Fauchon and French baguette from La Fromagerie...

Above: Spaghetti with a tomato sauce, and buffalo sausage

Above:  Fried vegetable wontons, and fried shrimp pockets with sushi rice

Above:  Cast iron pan chicken thighs, special spices, cabbage, onions and carrots

Above:  Baked salmon, red onions, white special sauce and lemons for garnish

Above:  Devilish Chicken (dijon, panko and percorino coating) with arugula and cherry tomoat salad and steamed sushi rice

Above:  Wild salmon with extra virgin olive oil, rosti (hash browns) and steamed green beans

As you can see, we love to eat, believe in having a few courses, and love to set up the table so that we truly appreciate the experience of eating, and eating together.  Cooking is love, and Love is cooking!

All the best, and happy eating,

Avila

DIARY 2 KUWAU: Ooooommmmm! Off to Plum Village!

11 June 2010

Cher familie et amis,                           

A quick KUWAU update because in a few hours we will be in transit to Bordeaux and away from internet for a week!

Our experience in Panzano in Chianti in Tuscany was just so amazing that I have not yet fully mentally and emotionally absorbed its impact on our consciousness (plural) yet.  (A full KUWAU coming soon...)  Tuscany and Italy are now deeply entrenched in us... I had tears in my eyes as we said goodbye to Dario Cecchini, the butcher, and his soon to be wife Kim. (The night before we had a going away party in the patio area of our farmhouse with all the other apprentices and Dario and Kim came, supplying all the wine - we were very touched by their presence!  Umar presented Dario with the Kyrgyz kalpak (traditional hat) to honor him and to thank him for all he had taught him.  

For the food, I cooked Vietnamese for all with a reportedly good level of success!)  During our month+ in Panzano and Florence (with a great side trip to Pescara on the Adriatic coast to visit Pamina and family, and the very fun visit of Jolene and her two sons), we met incredible people, those living truly in the moment and doing their best to live passionately... especially about food, wine, bio-organics, and of course, meat.  Food in Tuscany is a lifestyle, it is (big) business, though most importantly, it is their living history.  They live in honor of those that cooked before them, cook with naturally good ingredients (that force you to pause in appreciation after the first bite), and are constantly finding ways to return to the old ways of preparation.  For their livestock, they do all they can to respect the life and death of their livestock.  In this spirit, we took a few food related missions, driving to Pistoiawhere the book Slow - Life in an Tuscan Town was photographed/written, and further afield north to Porretta Terme to a restaurant called La Capannina where Mario Batali lived and learned to cook pasta for three years (ref again: Bill Bufford's Heat).  The personalized pasta experience, as friends of Dario, served from the hands of the owner Gianni Valdiserri, was a bit overwhelming – an experience that could be called an Italian omakase(“chef's choice” in Japanese) - I had to yell stop after the third round of fresh, hand-rolled pasta... we ended the meal with an incredible parma, reggiano and rucola pizza (Umar's favorite during our whole time in Italy!)

We already plan to return next year if the stars align, asking the owners of a restaurant that we frequented often called the Osteria La Panzanelle in a nearby town called Lucarelle if Umar could return to help in their kitchen – convinced by their very solid menu that changes bi-monthly (ex. lasagna made with nettles; raviolis filled with pecorino and pears) and the best panna cotta with strawberries!  They said of course Si!

We are now in Aix-en-Provence and have been with my French aunt and Vietnamese-French uncle (my dad's cousin who he grew up with in Hanoi) for the last week and have been treated every day and every meal to a king's feast accompanied by great laughter and a mix of French, English, Vietnamese, Italian, Spanish and a few words of Arabic thrown in for good measure.  (We have learned how to eat in a very Provencal way with many typical dishes prepared by my aunts Claude and Jacqueline... even the order is important - case in point: when the final cheese and dessert course was being served during one of our first meals after arrival, I had water in my glass and my uncle very quickly grabbed it, tossed it unexpectedly into the garden and said "You must have wine with the cheese!”)  I, of course, quickly abided.  I have been a very grateful guest to their home, being lucky enough to have visited over a half a dozen times and have greatly appreciated the love I have always received (and that received by all the others I have brought with me), and now it has been extended so warmly to Umar, who also was doing his job in charming them over in Italian (lingua franca with my aunt) and even cooking the famous delicacies we brought from the butcher shop (tonno de chianti, arista, porchetta, perfumo de chianti, mostarda)  including fresh cuts of chianina, the world's biggest cow - the macho is the size of a small dinosaur - raised only in Tuscany, a stone's throw from our farmhouse.  

For Aix's final tally for our trip - we relaxed, slept, shopped for table linens and bowl-like coffee cups, ate lots of bread and croissants (our consumption of 3 baguettes a day kept my uncle running to the local boulangerie!), salads, succulent grilled meats and delicious homemade casseroles, drankRicard de Marseille Pastis (Apero!), and Rosé de Provence, and visited the nearby towns of St. Tropez and Marseilles.  Our last lunch was with two of their Marseilles contractor friends, both with amazing faces and hands characterized by men who work with their hands and out in the sun, who regaled us with laughter about their philosophies on life, la Amerique, and women!  A wonderful time!

We are now headed off to Plum Village in Bordeaux (www.plumvillage.org) at 5am Friday morning, covering over 780km in hopefully about 6-7 hours.  Plum Village is the Buddhist retreat of Master “Thay” Thich Nhat Hanh, who will unfortunately be in Germany at the time we're there but I am confident this different and unique experience, where we will be possibly the only non-monastics there, will be equally enriching as when I was there previously during their popular summer session (that is during the month of July).  We will not have internet (nor meat, cheese, milk or any other animal products...)  The internet will be more difficult to live without - the vegan food served there is excellent!  If you need to reach us, the numbers are on the website!

Until June 18, when we are again digitally connected to the world outside this small hamlet in southwestern France, we hope you are all well!  More soon...

Love, and in peace,

Ann-Marie & Umar

DIARIO 1 KUWAU: Arribato a Tuscany, though very cold and rainy!

2 maggio 2010

ciao familia e amici,

we finally are connected, writing you from our little town in Tuscany, Panzano in Chianti.  we are staying in a 400-year old farmhouse called Il Palagio (6 different apts where there are also other international guests;http://www.agriturismoilpalagio.it/Palagio_site.page) that is quite nice, though made almost entirely of stone and very cold!  (to have heating is very expensive... i might advise against it... :)  the apt is fully furnished, has a fireplace and we have everything we need to live comfortably for the month+ that we're here (fridge, oven, pots, pans, lots of cups, wine glasses, linens, washing machine, tv, dvd, radio). it is almost full service, as they'll deliver firewood, olive oil and wine bottles - all the cosa importante - from their winery, though no food).  the bedroom and the bathroom are nice, nicer than our apt in alexandria, which is a plus.  we will light the fireplace once we find some matches - yes, you can see the little things stop us.  climate change has taken over here and it has been reportedly been raining since october of last year - so it has created havoc on the farming and winery schedule here, delaying both.  driving around, we are enjoying the incredible hillside views from all angles, every inch covered with olive groves, fruit trees, vineyards... all the roads to get between florence-panzano-siena are all windy... such as life!

[we have only brought the MAC so i am struggling and having convulsions away from my beautiful PC.  the MAC won't connect to the WEP2 connection that the farmhouse has, and especially impossible through the thick stone walls.  (tu, can you look at what we can do about this WEP2 connection as it's not an option on the MAC?)]

this morning we went to the weekly Panzano sunday market and bought fresh cheeses (a soft goat, a soft cow, and regianno... the real thing in Italy without the airmiles!)  they also had a fry truck (yoohoo!) with fried battered delicious vegetables (in olive oil of course) including cauliflower and artichokes - Italian tempura style - and roti chicken.  we also bought two types of olio extra vergine di oliva from the local market (i. D.O.P. chianti clasico 3.85  for.25 litro, ii. Sardelli 2.80  for .25 litro...) we will be experts on all the EVOO from across the region soon... some seem more bitter than others, but all delicious!  umar cooked up our first meal with a full fridge... penne al ragu, fresh fruit, bread, EVOO, the most delicious heirloom pomodoro and our selection of cheeses... oh yes, and we received a bottle of 2006 Il Palagio Chianti Classico Riserva from the vineyard, left by the owner Monia, her husband and her assistant Antonella that take care of the farmhouse, their B&B in town and the vineyard (all speak English almost perfectly... whew!)

at this moment we're sitting in a cafe before umar goes to meet Dario Cecchini for the first time!  he's been studying italian like crazy for the last days to prepare to start his apprenticeship on Wednesday with this world famous tuscan butcher.  (inspiration:  the new yorker's Bill Bufford's book Heat)  Dario’s restaurants are very cool inside (white and red modern aesthetics), where he is the 9^th generation of his family’s 500 year old butcher shop – having even served the Medici family - always full, his three restaurants above the butchershop and next door have only large long communal tables.  very cool. please send your best as umar begins his Hell's Kitchen italian-style!    

we did spend 5 days in granada and malaga, though mostly sick and overmedicating ourselves with a strange tamarind-flavored cough syrup and their version of theraflu, mixed with our nyquil pills from the US.  (unfortunately you can't buy antibiotics without a prescription – drats, and yes, we’re still coughing!)  the city of granada has changed very dramatically, surely from large infusions of grants from its ascension to the EU.  as you might have seen from a few FB posts, the city is with pocos turistas.  as one of the downgraded debt countries, it is suffering.  across all of spain, there is currently 20% unemployment, and in my beloved Andalucia, it is at a startling 27%.  wow. this of course means lots of apts for sale everywhere!  in any case, the alhambra is still glorious and full of tourists, and we finally did find a few good modern tapas restaurants (la ermita’s third outpost behind the catedral is incredible... carpaccio of ox (buey) and cod (bacalao)!  of course i stopped by Cafe Bar Ocana and yes, el Tony still lives!  now with fancy thick glasses and thick side burns!  we had a few delicious simple breakfasts of pan con tomato, fresh jugo de naranja and of course, café con leche. we didn't make it to the discoteca Granada 10 due to our debilitated states though next time...!  paseo de los tristes is totally gorgeous and peppered with restaurants, on gran via you can actually walk along with no fear, and el sacromonte is pretty safe - though we did give 5 euros to a gitana that forced her blessings on us earlier in the day.  granada, with such beautiful sunlight... dale limosna mujer que no hay nada peor que ser ciego en granada... regresaremos a verte!

on the way down to panzano, we did make a quick stop into milano and ate in Caffé Milano on their pedestrian shopping district, visited the incredible duomo and galeria where there was a young man playing beautiful classical music in front of the louis vuitton  store, and had some gelato in a modern, hip gelateria called chocola!  on a fashion note, i’ve never seen women dressed so well.  every woman has such beautiful casual outfits on with beautiful shoes, as if they just bought them minutes ago.  even the young look terribly well put together!

bene, we're off back into the rain!  hope you are all well, and i'll probably continue to write via email instead of blog until we get a stable connection at the farmhouse! (pictures to follow)!

un bacio per tutti!

ann-marie & umar