The Blog

Don’t be alarmed. The term food porn is only a “provocative term variously applied to a spectacular visual presentation of cooking or eating.” Enjoy.

(Best viewed in HD)

Music – “It’s Oh So Quiet” by Björk.

My cowokers at Uniqlo introduced me to pork dumplings in Chinatown. I can’t count how many times I’ve taken a stroll, in the cold, to grab a tray of these.

They are cheap. About $4.50 per tray at Shanghai Cafe. It’s good for groups. Go with cash in your pocket. Neither place accepts credit or debit cards. If you are in New York, stop by one or both of the best places to get pork dumplings.

Shanghai Cafe — 100 Mott Street, Chinatown

Joe’s Shanghai (the more famous of the two) — 9 Pell Street

Once again, my cousins Tangie and Damond pulled out all the stops. Great food, great music, great company.

Here’s the menu, and the pictures follow it. (I’ll try to get the recipe for the fish and leg of lamb posted here.)

Leg of Lamb (Julia Child recipe)
New Orleans Baked Fish
Seafood cornbread dressing
Scalloped potatoes
Sweet potato casserole
Brussel sprouts
Kale
Cranberry sauce
Wine and champagne

Table is set.

Tangie blesses the food.

Leg of Lamb (rough recipe by one of the featured chefs in one of Julie Child’s cooking books)

New Orleans Baked Fish

- 3 lb. red snapper or white fish
- 1/2 c. butter or oil
- 1 c. chopped onion
- 1/2 c. chopped green pepper
- 1 to 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 tbsp. flour
- 3 c. tomato sauce
- 1/2 c. chopped parsley
- 1 tsp. thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- Pinch of oregano
- Salt & pepper to taste

Wash and dry fish, melt butter or oil in fry pan. Add onions, green pepper and garlic. Cook until pepper is tender, stir in flour, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, bay leaves and oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes. Place fish in greased pan, pour some of the sauce inside of fish and rest over top. Bake 1 hour in slow oven (325 degrees).

Clearly, it was good. And so was the lamb.

Seafood dressing

Brussel sprouts

I was able to see my immediate family this year, just for a brief moment. I had to be back in New York before Christmas, so we did our thing early. And you know what that means! FOOOD!

Asked my mom for a crab feast, but I got much more than that. Let the drooling commence…

Crab and shrimp boil with broccoli salad in the background.

My fried chicken. (Yes, I fried it. Tired as I was, surprised that it turned out good.)

Rib eyes and links, seasoned and grilled to perfection by my lovely mother.

My mother’s apple pie. There was something about this one. It was better than any other time she’s made it.

I also got to reunite with my niece, Bailey. She’s the daughter of my step-sister Samara. I hadn’t seen Bailey since right after she was born in nearly seven months ago. I brought her the toy in the hopes she’ll remember me on my next visit.

This was my first ever Thanksgiving away from home. And, oh boy, it was a busy day.

I started the day at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The paper I interned at back in California contacted me regarding a local high school marching band that would be in the parade. I gladly accepted the assignment. I was up at 4 a.m. and didn’t finish the assignment, writing and editing, until around 5 p.m.

Once I was done with the reporting, I headed to my cousin’s where family members were gearing up to partake in a delicious spread. Best of all, it was baby Ailey’s first Thanksgiving. We all gathered around her bassinet and prayed over the food. Quite a touching moment. I tried to snap a picture of it. I think you can tell we are standing around her.

I ate, did some more work on my assignment, and then fell asleep. I was wiped out. Didn’t even get to taste the desert (red velvet cake) until two days later, when I returned for leftovers.

Here’s the menu and a few pictures I snapped:

Cajun-fried turkey
Seared salmon steaks
Seafood dressing
Traditional dressing
Macaroni and cheese
Sweet Potato casserole
Greens
Broccoli
Cranberry sauce
Buttered dinner rolls
Wine and champagne

This year I’m thankful for family. I could not thrive without them.

You can view all of my pictures from Barcelona on my Facebook page.

Mission accomplished. On this day, my one real vacation wish came true. I ate at Cal Pep, which is raved about by a few people we asked for travel advice. Let the drooling begin…

Sardine and pepper appetizer.

Cured ham and tomato bread.

Fried artichokes.

Tuna patty with sesame.

Spanish omelette with garlic sauce.

Clams in a broth flavored with bacon.

Razor clams with a buttery smoky flavor. (First time I’ve ever had razor clams.)

Steak and potatoes. Perfect doneness. Seasoned expertly.

Needless to say, I was out of money after that visit. It was well worth it!

Before I knew it, we were back on the plane for the US. Overall, a very good trip.

Shout out to Jen Jiggetts for bringing me the Ganesha figurine from her trip to India last month. I thought of taking it with me to Barcelona as soon as she gave it to me.

A little bit about Ganesha, in case you are puzzled. And, no, I’m not practicing Hinduism. I’m a person that tries to learn, respect and appreciate all cultures.

On this day, I fought myself to get up as early as I did. But I was so glad I got up. I took a tour of the city by bike. This is, no exaggeration, the only way to see the city. We went where cars and buses couldn’t go. We saw things the average tourist wouldn’t have seen, unless they knew to seek it out. The pictures do it no justice…

This company was great and very professional.

My “I can’t believe I’m about to ride a bike through a city I’ve never been in” face.

This tour was Veronica’s idea. Kelley and I couldn’t thank her enough.

Just gorgeous.

I mean…just breathtaking. This fountain was designed by Gaudi, if I heard the tour guide correctly.

The gate built to welcome people to the world fair in Barcelona.

An amazing thing to walk bike under.

Sagrada Familia. Enough said.

Tried to get you a little bit closer.

There. That’s better.

I rewarded myself with paella at La Poma, a restaurant with the worst service on La Rambla in Barcelona. Not only did we sit for two hours waiting for our food, the meal cost more than any other we’d had since vacation started. The paella was good, but didn’t really make up for it.

Today was the first time I really got to experience the streets of the city. A few of us woke up in the middle of the day (nice to do that on vacation) and walked to Placa de la Bouqueria. This is one of those open air markets that Anthony Bourdain and his kind are always walking through to get ingredients for a cooking segment. I was in heaven!

I’ll have more pictures of the market later…

From there, I met up with the entire group to tour the Pablo Picasso museum. Honestly, Salvador Dali is my favorite Spanish painter, but I really enjoyed the museum. I will be seeing Dali on Monday or Tuesday.

This was the only drawing I could find of an African.

One room (pictured above) had no paintings in it, but was so breathtaking that I had to take photos. By the way, we were not allowed to take photographs in the museum at all. I had to sneak them in.

After the museum, we came back to our apartment and I cooked clam pasta for those who like seafood, which turned out to be just four of the seven of us. Fine. More for us. (*sticks out tongue) I’ve posted the recipe below.

Ingredients: olive oil, garlic, flat-leaf parsley, clams (in shell), white cooking wine, and long pasta.

1. Place clams in a large dry pot or pan. Make sure clams are in one layer. Cover and heat on low heat until clams have opened and are swimming in their juice.
2. In another skillet, cover a medium to large sized pan with a generous amount of olive oil. On medium low heat, saute two to three cracked cloves of garlic in the oil until cloves are lightly golden brown. Then remove the cloves from the pan and let oil stand.
3. Remove clams from pot with slotted laddle, place in bowl and set aside.
4. Pour off the juice of the clams into a separate bowl and set aside.
5. Bring water to boil for pasta. Boil pasta until pasta is al dente.
6. Remove pasta and transfer to pan of garlic olive oil. Turn heat to medium. Pour in clam juice. Pour in about a cup and a half of white wine.
7. Add in shell (or shelled) clams to pasta. Stir and let wine, clam juice and olive oil coat pasta and clams. Add salt to taste.
8. Add chopped flat-leaf parsely and stir until parsley is spread evenly into pasta.
9. Serve immediately, with bread and wine.

If the US Dollar was an animal, it’d be a chihuahua next to the ‘Great Dane’ Euro.

That was my first thought when I exchanged currencies at the JFK airport. Truth is, while the dollar is weak, you don’t have to spend a whole lot of money to feed yourself in Barcelona. Grab a baguette, a package of ham and some juice from the grocery store. 6 euros.

We were so jet-lagged this day, that all we could do was sleep. Later we woke up for tapas. Kelley Carter and I woke up first. We were starving and snack off for a quick snack. I had jamon con huevos, patatas bravas, and an espresso. Que European, indeed!

Later, with the group, we went to Tapa Tapa. This place turned out to be the Chili’s of tapas in Barcelona. I will never eat there again. But we still had a good time.