My Pita Bread Post!

Matt has been asking for us to make falafel
for a while now, but I keep putting him off because it's so much work! Even though we use packaged falafel mix, the stress over getting the tzatziki to taste perfectly and the little chores of chopping parsley for tabouli and dill for the sauce drives me crazy. But... we love falafel, and we live in a town where there is no falafel to be had.

This time, Matt asked, "Do you think we could make the pita ourselves?"

I've been making bread at home for about a year now. It's partially been a new hobby and partially a step toward our goal of reducing the processed foods in our house. Last summer, I tried lots of different breads: white, wheat, rye, baguette, ciabatta, foccacia, pugliese, potato... but since school started, I've been relying on my bread maker to make multi-grain bread. We love it; it's easy and fits into our busy work routine, but I've been ready to start back with handmade bread.

So, when Matt asked, since I was still on dorm duty for the weekend and since I knew he wanted to create a meal fit for his viewing of the IMAX Everest movie, I figured it was a perfect time for falafel and for making pitas.

Sure enough, there was a pita recipe in my trusty bread book, 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood, which I found on clearance in those rows at Barnes and Noble where the books are stacked vertically instead of shelved horizontally.

These pitas were very simple to make: white bread flour, salt, sugar, olive oil, yeast, and water. After an hour for the dough to rest, I rolled them out and baked them in a very hot oven for about 9 minutes. Since we were frying falafel at the same time, we managed to send smoke into the kitchen, which is not generally a good idea in a dorm.

My pita breads were perfect.

Well, they weren't perfect. They were more like flatbreads than pita pockets. They puffed up, but an air pocket wasn't left behind. Next time, I'll use fresh yeast, roll them a little thinner, and try a hotter oven. Still, they tasted perfect with our dinner, they tasted perfect after work and with leftovers today, and I think they'll heat up perfectly tomorrow.

Making a loaf of bread, or a pita, has such a profound effect on me. I'm amazed at the simplicity of the ingredients and the power of yeast to transform flour and water. Every time, I expect my bread to fail because it just seems too much of a miracle that it doesn't. But, it doesn't fail. Instead, a warm, comforting aroma fills the house. Each time, I announce to Matt or our friends, "This didn't come out right," but I know it doesn't matter. It's fresh, it's homemade, and it emanates goodness.

And, like I told you about the durian smoothie and the spicy squid, it simply makes me happy.

Next time, we're ditching the packaged falafel, too. I'll keep you posted.

Here's the recipe from Paul Hollywood. See if you can get the pockets, but if not, enjoy it the way you make it.

4 cups white bread flour, plus some for the counter
1 tbsp salt
1/4 cup sugar (recipe calls for superfine sugar, which I didn't have)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 oz/30g yeast (recipe assumes compressed fresh yeast, but I used active dry yeast and reduced the amount by about 25%)
1 and 1/4 cups water

Combine ingredients in one bowl and mix by hand. When the dough has formed, knead dough on lightly floured surface for 5 minutes. Let the dough rise for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees and placed a lined baking sheet in the oven to heat up. Divide the dough in balls the size of a lime or 100 gram/3.5 ounce pieces. Roll the balls to about 1/2 inch thickness, and let rest for 5 minutes. Place pitas on heated baking sheet (I didn't have anything to line my sheets, so I just buttered the pan). Bake for 5-10 minutes. I flipped mine, so they would brown a little on both sides, but you don't have to.

The pitas should balloon up in the oven and then collapse when you take them out... this is when the pockets should form!

Recipe courtesy of:
Hollywood, Paul. 100 Great Breads. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2006. Originally published by Cassell Illustrated, 2004.

Pork Belly and Blood Sausage

Looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? A little something grilled, with some crispy kielbasa-like sausage atop a bed of lentils soaked in bacon... The other night at Solera, I wanted to try something new, so I ordered the Sherry Glazed Pork Belly with Morcilla and Lentils. I'd never had pork belly, but since I hear about it all the time, I thought it was time to check it off my list.

But when the server delivered our tapas, she said, "Here is the pork belly and blood sausage."

Blood sausage? I don't know why I didn't realize. Maybe I thought that morcilla was a red wine sauce or a type of Spanish cheese, but, relevant cognates or not, I didn't realize I'd ordered up such a culinary combo.

This pork belly and blood sausage virgin was terrified and thrilled.

My first taste of pork belly almost shut me down. Maybe the crispy edge could have saved the bite, but all I got was a thick slab of pork fat in my mouth. It melted easily, unlike the chewy fat that I always cut off my steaks, but the idea of eating pure fat made my stomach turn. Lucky for the pork belly, I noticed that the next bite actually had a bit of meat on it. Sure that bit of meat tasted good, but another chunk of melty fat came with it. That was it; I was done with the pork belly. Bring on the blood.

Morcilla is the Spanish version of blood sausage, which is made from the fat and blood of a slaughtered pig. My friend Brad, who drank rattlesnake blood in China, shrugged and said, "We had that all the time in the cafeteria when I was in Germany." All I remember from die Mensa was Mullermilch, pretzel rolls, and RitterSport, which tells you a lot about my dietary health at the time. As I sipped my wine, I imagined that big party for three days after the slaughter when the whole family celebrates by eating every part of the pig. That's sort of what I wanted for myself after a week of work. A night in the big city is a reason to celebrate; a night of tapas and puppet nudity at the Orpheum was about as good as it could get. Blood sausage was my celebration.

So I gently cut my morcilla in half, savoring the fantasy that I was, for the moment, even further from home than Minneapolis and trying blood sausage in Germany or Argentina or Spain. The insides crumbled slightly, but I choose a nice first bite. A little onion, a little sweet but rich, the sausage had a crispy edge. Like the pork belly, it melted in my mouth, but more like the melt of chocolate than fat. It was earthy, not meaty, and I would have been happy to finish it off, but instead, I passed the plate to share with my friends.

The lentils, by the way, were fantastic.

The Durian Experience

I went to Hawaii with a mission. This time, I would try durian, that notorious fruit that stops globe-trekking chefs in their tracks. I'd already missed other opportunities in Asia and Hawaii; this time would be different.

Durian, the king of fruit, comes from Southeast Asia, where it is used for both sweet and savory dishes. Some claim it has powerful health effects, and some claim it is an aphrodisiac; however, the fruit is nearly inedible to those not accustomed to its odor. Durian is even prohibited in some establishments because of this overpowering odor. Supposedly, it can be smelled over a long distance even when the fruit is uncut.

My original goal was to try the fruit plain; I had visions of having a meaningful connection with some fruit seller who would machete open the hard, thorny fruit for me as though I was a Food Network celeb in a far off land. I chickened out. I couldn't bring myself to buy a whole durian at one of the markets, ask someone to chop it open, taste a tiny bit on the streets of Chinatown, likely gag obnoxiously in front of them, and then throw out the fruit like a careless, culturally insensitive spendthrift.

So, I settled for a durian smoothie with pearls in Chinatown.

When I ordered one, the woman behind the counter said, "You know what it is?" I assured her I knew, but that I had never tried it before. She simply said, "Tastes good, smells bad," and smiled.

I wouldn't exactly say good was a perfect description of the taste, but durian does smell bad. It smells like trash, like my garbage can in summer after we've missed trash day. My husband, who suffered though only one or two small slugs of the shake, fondly remembers a taste of "creamy, buttery ass." Actually, he said something far more crude than I care to record here.

But, I found that if you don't pause significantly between sips, like less than 5 seconds, the rotten odor starts to fade away and the sweeter taste of the fruit emerges. So, I kept slurping. Tempered by sweetened condensed milk, ice, and tapioca pearls, the durian took on a flavor more like a melon, but a melon that was somehow off. Every time I stopped for a breath, the sewage-rot odor returned with a vengeance.

And yet, it was growing on me. It had been a long time, since fermented eggs and duck knuckles in Beijing, since I had tried something this different. I was happy; the brief exotic experience and the famously fragrant fruit nudged me to shake my mid-winter Minnesota blues.

And I felt ready. Ready for the durian without the palate pleasing support of the smoothie. Thailand, anyone?

2010 Maple Syrup Run

In case you are wondering, it's been a year since I first starting tracking my 5K times. In 2009, I ran 4 5Ks, and this year, I'm hoping to at least pass that by one. My training hasn't been perfect, but I've made some good strides.

Last April, I ran the Maple Syrup Run at River Bend Nature Center in 36:14. Yesterday, I ran it in 31:02, which is almost exactly a 10 minute mile pace. This year, my time did feel like a major milestone. I accomplished goal, and for someone who often thinks of herself as indecisive and lacking self-discipline, that's pretty damn good!

Kudos to my husband, who shaved a good seven minutes off his time, too!

My New Best Meal Ever

We'd heard all about these famous shrimp trucks on the North Shore of Oahu, but little did I know what I would discover when we finally made our way there. The "trucks" are converted mail trucks that serve up shrimp from the local shrimp farms in Kahuku. We first stopped at Giovanni's because we had heard they were one of the originals. Sure enough, when we got there, it became clear Giovanni's was THE shrimp truck to try. Cars lined up to turn right into the grass parking lot. A small tour bus pulled in behind us. A crowd of tourists hung around the two mail trucks leisurely; we were not quite sure if they were standing in line to order or to pick up. I had a flutter of that feeling like when you first go to Anna's Taqueria, when it seems like everyone but you knows what to do and you can't figure it out in time before you get to the tortilla warmer. After taking a minute to assess that nearly everyone was waiting to pickup, we made our way to the front and ordered the shrimp scampi, which seemed to be the house specialty, from a young blond high schooler. After a long wait, we indulged in a plate of hot, buttery, garlic shrimp and rice.


I looked around to see a young Japanese couple posing for pictures with their shrimp. Across from us, a very large girl around eight years old sucked the butter and garlic off every shrimp before pulling off the shells, slurping her Gatorade, ingesting each shrimp in one bite, and licking her fingers. A small bird hopped around, waiting for a bit of butter and rice.

Five napkins each, we were hooked and ready for more. Luckily, we had concocted what I thought was an ingenious plan: order only one plate from Giovanni's so we could visit a second truck, Famous Kahuku Shrimp Truck...


Even though it was the just next one up the road, this shrimp truck was different. There was no line turning off the main road, no tour bus, and no crowd waiting to pick up. Only one family, albeit a very large family, occupied the purple picnic tables, with a cooler of drinks from home. Where Giovanni's felt like an ice cream parlor on the Cape in August, this truck was quiet and calm. With no confusion about what line to stand in, we placed our order; this time is was a Korean style hot and spicy squid with shrimp scampi.


And there is was... the best meal I've had in recent memory. At first we took distinct bites of the two, but soon the buttery shrimp and spicy squid blended together to create a new sensation.


Off the beaten path in no way, it was simply the second truck up the road, yet 99% of the tourists missed it when they took that very first turn off Kamehameha Highway. Matt and I, on the other hand, happily sucked the butter and garlic off of every shrimp, scooped up every spot of spicy squid, slurped our Cokes, and licked our fingers. No scraps for begging birds here. Just two people contemplating a return visit the THE shrimp truck.