Best Food Blogs of 2007

Chefty, of course, is not on this list. But maybe some other year! Anyway, for those of you who like to poke around the food sites, these are the year's best.

2007 Food Blog Award Winners

A cooky trip to Costa Rica

View of Costa Rica from the Cesna we rode from San Jose to Tamarindo.

I am back from a lovely two-week trip to the Central American country of Costa Rica. It was grand. It was a vacation in true cooky style - lots of activity tempered by plenty of eating, sleeping, drinking, and smoking (hooray duty free!). Here's my recap of our tour of the Playa Tamarindo, Arenal, and Monteverde regions of the country.

Playa Tamarindo is all about surf and sun. We stayed at the La Laguna Del Cocodorilio hotel, which is, we learned, owned and operated by French surfers.

Front desk at La Laguna del Cocodorilio and its crack team of surfer staff. Seriously though, they were great.

I highly recommend this spot as long as you stay away from the lower-end "street side" rooms. Though less expensive, these rooms were noisy, basically had no bathroom door, and came equipt with a ceiling fan that threatened to decapitate if turned on. More like the lodging of choice for transients with questionable motives. It was a stitch in the tapestry of our adventure, but I was pleased to move on to one of the "garden view" rooms.

Perks of the French hotel: attached French bakery and daily breakfast of coffee and pastry surrounded by blue sky and tropical fauna. Picture taken from the patio of our garden view room.

Availing ourselves of local activities, we surfed, took yoga classes, and bummed around town. It didn't take us too long to target some key eateries.

The sign for Frutas Tropicales. The establishment also offers a lodging.

Frutas Tropicales was a standout restaurant for providing the best comidas typica - typical local food, usually black beans and rice, some protein, and maybe a little salad - at a moderate price.

Casados pollo, not actually from Fruitas Tropicales, but still pretty alright.

Surprisingly, most restaurants and cafes only sell coffee per cup. As much as I crushed on my beloved French bakery, I was hemorraging currency to feed my morning arabica habit. Fortunately, we found Nogui's, a delicious but notorious "gringo eatery" that offered bottomless cups of coffee. Ahhhhhhh.....


I should also mention that Tamarindo is a partying kind of place as well. If you have the inclination, there are all sorts of opportunities to inebriate. Just talk to the the front desk attendant or the guy on the corner whispering, "You doing ok?" as you walk by. Rumor has it the people hanging out below sneakers dangling from trees or electrical lines can also facilitate a transaction, but that information has yet to be confirmed. My group consisted of overworked ladies looking for relaxation, not so much glow sticks and grinding teeth, so we stuck to the occassional happy hour.

Many coconut-based cocktails were had, but the best was the Miguelito shot served at Nibbana. Sweet and very coconut-y....

The next leg of our trip was to the Arenal Volcano. We stayed at the Tabacon Grand Spa Thermal Resort and enjoyed daily dips in the most extensive complex of thermal springs I've ever seen or even heard about. Apparently it's among the top 10 hot springs resorts in the world. The springs consist of rainwater that has trickled into the base of the volcano where it's heated by magma and enriched with minerals.

Who knew really hard, hot water was so blissful?

Although we were able to make out the volcano in the daytime, we didn't get a chance to catch a glimpse of the lavaflow at night. Oh well.

Arenal is the nearest township to the volcano and resort. Honestly, it wasn't worth the taxi fare from the resort except to go to the supermercado for a change, well downgrade actually, in scenery. We scored awesome, kitschy sourvenier gifts there though.

On the next leg of our journey, we took the "Jeep-Boat-Jeep" travel service to get from Arenal to Monteverde. It was far more comfortable, inexpensive, and picturesque than making the entire trip strictly by road. Oddly, no jeep was ever used in the commute, but it was pretty cool taking a boat across the lake.

A view of Arenal Volcano from the lake.

Monteverde, I'm thinking, is kind of like the Vermont of Costa Rica. Lots of rolling green, organic this and that, dairies, farms and the like. Plus, there's fun jungle all around you. Monteverde held the most interesting food experience, as there are a lot of local products - cheeses, coffee, fruits, etc. - used in town.

Whole coffee beans picked on the way up to Monteverde. Eaten raw they taste kind of like a not-so-tart cranberry with a large soft seed in the center (the coffee bean itself). It was good.

We stayed in Santa Elena, the twin township of Monteverde. For those familiar with central Illinois, Santa Elena is the Champaign to Monteverde's Urbana - it's the more commerical, less hippie side. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure it would also be the Minneapolis side of the twin cities. Our hotel, the Arco Iris Lodge, featured a breakfast buffet of local coffee (bottomless, by the way), eggs laid from the hotel owner's own hens, among many other locally produced yummies. Even the biodegradeable soap provided in the rooms was made of glycerine and local honey.

A view of the verdant Arco Iris compound from our terrace.

A selection of fresh beverages at the breakfast buffet: guava juice, water, and fresh milk.

The only disappointment of the hotel were shoddy shower doors.

In town we came upon a pleasant handful of inexpensive eateries. The most notable, Donde Henry, is a one room canteen of comidas typica. Had we found it earlier, I'm sure we would eaten at Donde Henry daily.

Donde Henry, located in the Supermercado Vargas building, next to Super Licores. If their patrons' rides are any indication, the complex's patrons enjoy a rugged, rustic lifestyle.

The entire interior of Donde Henry - a true cooky eatery.

We ate fantastic pork tamales steamed in banana leaf. They were not blurry in real life.

Another delicious discovery were the local bakeries, where you can have a small inexpensive meal of empanada along with coffee.

There were empanadas stuffed with beef, chicken, or vegetables.

As I mentioned earlier, the coffee consumption experience in Costa Rica was surprising. First, coffee was not sold every 10 feet and in varied permutations as I had hoped it to be. Second, it wasn't tremendously cheap either. A small cup of coffee in Tamarindo and Arenal was usually a little over $1 - about the same price as those from streetcarts in NYC. In Monteverde though the coffee was excellent and less expensive, I reckon because of the ready supply of local beans. Third, the majority of coffee makers were the same brand - a very high-tech contraption, with a built-in grinder, and settings to make all sorts of fancy drinks. It was pretty curious.

The multi-purpose coffee machine ubiquitous in Costa Rica.

So that was my cooky holiday. We spent a couple days in San Jose, which I'm sure has all sorts of interesting Chefty-worthy things going on, but we really just hung out long enough to catch our flight.

Some people think Costa Rica's "over", and, indeed, it's not quite as bohemian and no longer as dirt cheap as it used to be, but the country remains very conscious of over-development and maintaining its environmental integrity. As long as its world-class surf remains though, Costa Rica will probably keep a strong backpacker vibe and cheaper food and lodging options catering to that market. It has mountains and jungles, monkeys and dogs (jesus, the dogs...), partying and yoga. Tickets from the U.S. are pretty affordable too. I say go.

Yo heart Costa Rica.

Bring on the new foods.

I went for sushi on Thursday night and had some very tasty miso soup. Therein were these perfect little cubes of...something. They were nearly translucent, but still had some bite and a sweet, barely starchy kind of flavor. I was confounded. Chefty, I asked myself, is this potato? Some sort of radish? What it is?! I decided it must be daikon and asked the waitress and she said, "It's winter melon."

Winter melon! Never heard of it (have you?), but I want to eat it again. Here's what it looks like. I bet it would be equally delicious in a stir-fry.



PS: Don't they look like little sugar cubes? Kind of darling.

My favorite salad.

Bresola, sliced thin (proscuitto is nice too)

Big handful of arugula or mixed greens
Artichoke hearts and picholine olives, chopped rough
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Toss toss toss.

Pile greens on bresola, top with one more slice, add some curls of whatever hard italian cheese you like, and voila: delicious salad.

I made some noises earlier in the week about my birthday dinner. Quick recap: it turned out alright, but I don't really remember making all of it. Champagne kind of has that effect on me. In any case, I do remember that I did not brush enough of the salt off the salt-crusted pork tenderloin, which resulted in some intense dehydration the next day. Water never tasted so good! The greatest thing about this recipe, though, was the herbs in the salt. I used sage and I wasn't sure if the flavor would really come through, with all the salt. But it did, and it was quite savory. I seared the pork first, then sealed it up in its salty-sagey igloo and roasted it for about half an hour, along with some little yukon gold potatoes. The result? Fragrant, crusty on the outside, but lovely and juicy and chewy on the inside. Pork: good.

Also, the apple cake we made (thank you, Happy Luddite--sous chef extraordinaire!) was exactly what I wanted. Spicy, overloaded with apples, baked up into a rich, craggy brown crust. Fall in food form. I could have just had cake for dinner and been in heaven.

Oh, and the kohlrabi. Everybody go out and get some, right now. Roasted with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, it is delicious. I think there's a good amount of sugar/starch in there because mine got a nice brown crust on it and tasted something like a potato, but lighter and sweeter, almost like a daikon. But it's not chunky or fibrous like a squash or other root vegetables--it gets very tender and velvety. No wonder it was so good in soup.

Tonight I'm going to make Marcella Hazan's bolognese and serve it up with some porcini pasta. It's rare that I eat pasta but yesterday I just kind of got the craving. Good blustery day food. I'm excited to see how the sauce turns out. It's a pretty traditional preparation, made with milk and nutmeg and a mix of ground meats, with tomatoes added almost as an afterthought. Definitely not the meat sauce I'm accustomed to making.

I'll also be making some more brussel sprouts, in an effort to counteract the calorie-laden meat/pasta/dairy trifecta. (But it's OK if I make the sprouts with pancetta, right? Cue arteries seizing.)

Stay tuned, faithful three readers....

Birthday eve.

Tonight I went to see Iron & Wine. They were really fantastic. Sweet, strummy, and beautiful songs. It was like being in a trance. I will be purchasing all of the rest of their albums this week, as I only have the second one and clearly, clearly I need them all. In fact, I would purchase this song on iTunes right now if I could get my account to open! (iTunes is such a tease. Am I the only one trying to buy music at midnight on a Monday? Seems unlikely.)

Flightless Bird, American Mouth
I was a quick wet boy
Diving too deep for coins
All of your straight blind eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere

Have I found you?
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big bill looming

Now I’m a fat house cat
Cursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide/white fence cracks
Kissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you?
Flightless bird, brown hair bleeding
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big bill, stuck going down


These lyrics may seem a bit strange, but the music makes all the difference, honestly.

Before the show I had a scrumptious dinner at Le Pichet with my friend Julija: white bordeaux, my favorite butter lettuce salad with dijon and hazelnut dressing, and moules frites. Tres yummy!

All is right with the world. Now if only my carpet would dry out from the flooding. (Boo. Rain. Also, boo: 31. My profile updated already. Don't I get a 24-hour grace period after passing the 30-year mark?)

Does anyone understand this?

cooky sent me this crazy (cooky?) e-mail forward with tons of holiday cookie recipes. I'm beginning to plan out my experiments (to commence next weekend) and I came across this concoction.

Sand Art Brownies

2/3 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup vanilla-flavored baking chips
walnuts to fill jar (about 1/2 cup)

Place ingredients in order listed in a quart-sized jar. Tamp ingredients down. Attach the following directions to the jar: Mix with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, and three eggs. Spread into a greased 9x9 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until done.

I'm confused. "Attach the following directions to the jar?" What's the whole point of preparing this in the jar if you're just going to pour it into a pan? Also, if anyone's ever seen vanilla-flavored baking chips, I'd like to know.

cooky: I believe this one is going to be filed under "bizarre."

Mulled is a good word.

I made some mulled wine last night with some leftover Zinfandel. Heated up today, it's ten times better. I took a mug of it into the shower with me! How's that for a rainy day treat? (Fortunately my shower has a handy little shelf that's out of the way of the nozzle and any errant soap suds.)

Anyway, mulled wine is really easy if you've never made it: just red wine, a few heaping teaspoons of sugar, a couple cloves, a cinnamon stick, star anise if you have it, a few black peppercorns, and a few peels of orange zest. Turn it on low, cover, simmer for half an hour, then strain and sip. There are recipes that include brandy, which seems like a bit much to me (also I don't really like brandy). Some people add hunks of apples and orange and pear along with the spices--I like that, too, but the fruit doesn't hold up for long. Which is fine because honestly, would a delicious wine-poached pear or apple get left behind? Not by me. I think you could probably use any red (save for maybe a light red like pinor noir)--I've seen a lot of recipes that recommend rioja or merlot. This zinfandel tastes pretty good to me!

Alright, off to lunch (grilled cheese and Campbell's tomato soup...mmm) and then to work. I did venture out into the rain today and picked up some goods at the market. Nothing too interesting, except for kohlrabi--a new ingredient for Chefty! I had some kohlrabi soup a few weeks ago that came with a grilled scallop, it was a really interesting flavor, kind of nutty but with a tang that tasted a little like turnip (minus the sour). Yum. I'm planning to roast this with some acorn squash as a side dish for my birthday dinner this week.