Palate Pioneer

Primping and Pimping for Premium Pix

2010-12-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

The art of enhancement.

The art of manipulation.

The art of deception—sometimes.

The art of turning something pedestrian into something irresistible.

No, I’m not talking about push-up bras. I’m talking about food styling.

I had the good fortune learn some food styling tips from one of the top names in the business, Delores Custer, thanks to a workshop offered by the Portland Culinary Alliance at The Art Institute of Portland's Culinary School.

My wildly swinging appetite during her slide show attests to her skill. Oohhhh, I want a hamburger—char grilled, juicy, crispy with lettuce and onion. No, I want pancakes dripping with syrup and melted butter. Wait, no, bread pudding swimming in chocolate sauce REALLY sounds good.

I am easily manipulated.

No longer an obscure behind-the-scene art, food styling is increasingly on everyone’s radar, not least because of the explosion of enthusiastic amateurs snapping tasty pix for their blogs, review sites like Yelp and food-obsessed websites like Chowhound.

While a sumptuous dish viewed in person triggers all five hungry senses, a successful photograph utilizes every trick to appeal to our eyes alone, suggesting tempting scent, luscious texture, a hot sizzle or refreshing chill, and a transcendent deliciousness. Experts like Delores harness a variety of techniques, which she discusses in her new book--the absolute bible on the topic--Food Styling: The Art of Preparing Food for the Camera. After over 30 years as one of the top names in the business, she knows all the secrets, many of which she invented. A split-second with a heat-gun gives chocolate chip cookies that straight-out-of-the-oven look. An eyedropper—or even a tiny jot of soap—gives coffee that just-poured freshness.

I was inspired to put my little Canon digital camera through its paces. Here are a couple shots in which I captured that tight depth of field so popular in food photography today. And now, armed with the methods Delores shared, my food pictures--my favorite souvenirs of any trip—will burst with sensory appeal.

Gallery of the sky, Martinique

2010-07-31T07:07:00.000-07:00

Saint Anne, viewed across the bay of Marin

What is it about the skies here?

The light is rapturous--perhaps that's what lured Paul Gaugin here in 1887 to paint about a dozen canvasses.

The clouds are enormous sculptures sailing over blue water.

Squalls sweep in over the Atlantic, giving way to rainbows of epic proportions. Look.....


Le Marin at sunset

From the kitchen at sunset

Gold glow of sunset, off the porch

Clouds from the porch

Sunset

Eight Things To Know About Rhum in Martinique:

2010-06-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

1.   It’s rhum, not rum.
2.   It’s actually rhum agricole and a different product from the usual Caribbean rums we imbibe. The difference? Instead of being distilled from a fermented brew of molasses, a by-product of sugar production, it is distilled directly from fermented cane juice. Unless it’s aged (old = vieux), it’s a white rhum.
3.   It’s available in boxes, just like cheap wine! Only it’s all the best rhum.
4.   What’s the best? Some local brands of renown include Clement, Trois Rivières,   La Mauny, and Depaz.
5.   The traditional local drink is “ti punch,” a formidable blend of rhum, a little local coarse sugar, and a miniscule whisper of lime juice. Order it at a bar or restaurant and you’ll typically receive a glass, a sugar bowl, a wedge of lime the size of your thumbnail, and a large bottle of rhum agricole. DIY! And please, don’t expect any ice.

6.   Yes, it’s wicked strong at first, but you’ll be surprised at the smooth underbelly it displays after a few sips.
7.   Variations on ti punch? Supermarkets offer various flavored syrups to substitute for the sugar: vanilla, ginger and sirop batterie, which is essentially molasses.
8.   The “ti” of ti punch comes from the French word petit, meaning small.

Martinique: A Tropical Taste of France in the Caribbean

2010-06-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

I’m spending nine weeks on Martinique—and this is my third long visit. Am I lucky, or what? (The top picture is the view from our porch.)

Yes I am, unequivocally. Although that sense did waver a bit yesterday when I was stung by a jellyfish at one of the legendary white-sand-and-palm-tree beaches. The effects passed within an hour or two, though, and I’m ready for another swim.

A smallish island, not more than 60 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, Martinique’s intricately winding coastline and hairpin roads seem to cover much more ground than its actual area of about 1100 square kilometers. Ranging from dense and somewhat arid chaparral with spiny acacia and cactus to impassable rain forest, it’s known in French as “lîle aux fleurs” – isle of flowers. It lives up to the moniker. Its volcanic origins are expressed in the dramatic landscape, heaving with steep hills and deep valleys.

Martinique is a department of France, analogous to Hawaii’s status as a state and resulting in a vibrant blend of colorful Caribbean culture and French civility.

Boulangeries supply baguettes and pastries (filled with guava or salt cod, as well as dark chocolate—no, not in the same pastry!), and any corner store will offer brie and red wine, as well as locally produced juices like corossol and maracudja (soursop and passion fruit).

The radio stations play lively local zouk interspersed with French pop. All the social services available in métropole (as locals refer to mainland France) are available here, so health care, education and infrastructure all meet the European standard.

It has its rustic aspects as well. Brightly painted snack shops built of scrap wood dot the roads, and there’s an old house just down the road from ours with walls made traditionally of woven sticks, alternating with corrugated sheet metal. Free-roaming flocks of sheep and goats roam the countryside where late-model BMW’s whip along curving roads. Men still go out in small boats to catch tuna and swordfish, which they slice up and sell along the highway, and villagers cast out fishing nets from shore as they’ve done for generations.

A Food-Obsessed Fest with the Best

2010-04-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

The IACP just concluded its annual conference, held in Portland this year.

Which IACP? The International Association of Chiefs of Police? Nope.

The International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists? Nope.

How about the International Association for Cognitive Psychotherapy? Uh uh.

Maybe this picture gives a hint:

Yes, the International Association of Culinary Professionals!

It attracted food-obsessed folks of all stripes, from several continents. Food stylists, expatriate bed & breakfast proprietors, cooks, personal chefs, cookbook authors, editors, cooking teachers--all bound by an bottomless love of all that's edible.

I signed up as a local volunteer, allowing me to give directions, recommend restaurants and join some excellent seminars while rubbing shoulders with some renowned food folks. Ruth Reichl gave the keynote address. Legendary sausage king Bruce Aidells sassed teacher/author Crescent Dragonwagon, who sassed right back. Shirley O. Corriher, author of Cookwise and Bakewise, made me biscuits.

Okay, she made them for everyone.

Hugh Carpenter won Cooking Teacher of the Year, and I got to shake his hand and remind him that I was one of his assistants at Montana Mercantile in Los Angeles back in the eighties.

At the Host City Reception, I scooped gelato for Cathy Whims of Portland's Nostrana, and flitted about the room sampling lavishly garnished potato pancakes from Broder, chocolates from Moonstruck, Dungeness crab with delicate gnocchi from Paley's Place, gorgeous macaroons (passion fruit!!! port wine!!!) from Pix Patisserie, and about two dozen other delicacies. And a surprisingly delicious cocktail, bravely combining Campari and Krogstad Aquavit from our own House Spirits Distillery!

Next year Austin, Texas hosts. Need any volunteers?

Island Abundance at the St. Croix Farmers Market

2010-02-09T04:29:00.000-08:00

Stroll through a market--or wedge your way through the crowd--and meet the buyers, sellers, producers and processors. Smell the guavas or the aged cheese or the shellfish, hear the crack of a machete against green coconut, the cackle of doomed chickens or the sizzle of thinly sliced tubers plunging into boiling oil, and you begin to taste a place. Anywhere--Java, France, Martinique or Santa Monica, it's a colorful window into what matters locally.

St. Croix has a small and lively market in mid-island every Saturday. There are no large-scale producers--most of the vendors (mostly women) easily fit their wares onto the designated space, a table with short walls about the size of a large coffee table. A few bunches of collards or mixed herbs, a small pile of tomatoes, and a dozen avocados--that sort of thing. There are a few green thumbs in business, selling vigorous little plants in 6-inch pots: oregano, mint, orchids and ornamentals. Some women sell home-made seasoning and fruit preserves. And there are a few monoculturalists: one man has nothing but enormous stalks of green bananas and another, a pick-up truck bed of green coconuts.

Adjacent is the fish market--a picture of bureaucratic irony. There's a series of concrete stalls with concrete tables shaded from the sun, expressly for selling fish, but for some reason that's not allowed, so all the fish vendors sell out of coolers under improvised shade. Gutting and scaling take place on decaying wooden tables, decorated lavishly with glittering scales. A couple of 5-gallon buckets of bloody water serve for rinsing knives, hands and fish. There's even a fish-cleaning set-up in the back of a van. I suspect it diminishes the re-sale value of the vehicle considerably....

St. Croix: an Island of History

2010-01-28T18:37:00.000-08:00

In Jeopardy parlance, the answer is: A place in the United States where we drive on the left.

Or try this: A place in the U.S. that has flown the flags of 6 other nations before flying the stars and stripes.

Question: What is St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands?

I'm on my eighth visit to St. Croix, the largest of the three U.S. Virgin Islands. St. Thomas is for shoppers, St. John is for nature buffs, and St. Croix is for real. There's a whiff of history everywhere you turn. Ruined sugar mills-- tall pale cones crafted of coral block and white mortar--dot the landscape, from the days when sugar and rum went to Europe and the Americas by the boatload.

Christiansted, hosting a harbor on the North coast, echoes old Denmark, with stately plastered buildings in egg-yolk yellow, narrow streets and arcaded sidewalks. Frederiksted, anchored with a 1760 fort, is all peeling gingerbread trim, having been entirely rebuilt following the violent slave rebellion in 1878. Gracious great houses preside over the landscape. A few old houses are open for tourists, but more of them are still just home to somebody. And some are just home to geckos and tangled vines as they crumble into time.

We often walk a long dirt road to swim at a remote beach. Sometimes I find a worn fragment of china, relic of the plantation that once governed the property. The history here is like that--right under your feet--just keep your eyes open and there it is.

Finding Gold Among the Pine Needles

2009-10-11T21:33:00.000-07:00

Autumn in the Pacific Northwest. A stroll in the forest, sun filtering through flaming vine maple leaves. Cushy moss and thick beds of shedded needles under the Douglas Fir. Wind whispering, birds calling. And a great big basket of chanterelles!

It was my first time mushroom hunting. My long experience buying chanterelles at the farmers market helps--I'm familiar with the variety of shapes and shades in which they come, the intertwining ridges that run underneath the cap and down the stem, the way the caps invert into distorted rippling cups, the puckering and contortion of a mushroom that has forced its way up under a log.

The first few minutes of hunting was a little discouraging, as I heard shouts of discovery from someone following right in my footsteps, picking a luscious fungus I'd virtually stepped over. Soon I found a few and my senses sharpened, picking out that certain shade of yellow, a little brighter than fallen leaves. I began to spot them capped with pine needles, thrusting up a thick layer of duff. I found rich clusters of them, and I gasped as I circled my fingers around a stem and burrowed them around it, into the forest floor. Thick around as a broom handle! A twist, a pull, a trim with my Opinel knife, into the basket.

There were 40 of us, spreading out in the woods south of Mount Hood. Bark, a Mount Hood advocacy group, orchestrated the outing. We carpooled out of Portland and into the wilderness along logging roads, passing hunters and ATV enthusiasts before spilling out into the forest, baskets in hand. Mark DesMarets, an experienced fungal enthusiast, advised us about the specimens we might find and the ecology of the mushroom. Amazingly, 300,000 pounds of wild mushrooms are exported from Oregon annually.

In view of that number, my two-and-three-quarters pound of fragrant, golden chanterelles doesn't sound too impressive. But piled high in my basket, curving stems spreading to undulating crowns, I found them magnificent. Likewise, a few hours later when a handful of them issued their savory juices in my skillet, along with butter, leeks, garlic, thyme and creme fraiche... magnificent.

Harvesting for Humanity

2009-08-19T22:13:00.001-07:00

A gunmetal gray cloud cover hangs low over the Salinas Valley, obscuring the rugged Santa Lucia Highlands and shading a crowd of workers wearing hairnets and rubber gloves as they bend in a field, plunging knives into the stems of red romaine lettuce, pulling off tattered leaves and tossing tidy heads into crates. The awkward techniques and leisurely pace make it clear: this isn't an ordinary harvest crew. On this May Saturday morning, 60 volunteers are joining a bi-monthly gleaning event organized by Ag Against Hunger to supply fresh produce to food banks in the tri-county area and beyond.

Today, the glean team is harvesting lettuce from a field that was maintained all the way to maturity--nine weeks--and, now that prices have dropped, is no longer economically viable to harvest. Without Ag Against Hunger, the tilling, planting, pesticide spraying and watering which has nurtured this field since March would be wasted, along with a perfectly good crop of lettuce. Some Saturday mornings, volunteers engage in true gleaning: the age-old process of gathering produce after the official harvest has been completed and part of the crop is left behind due to size or cosmetic issues.

I arrived at 9 AM at the Ag Against Hunger warehouse in Salinas to find a buzzing crowd of all ages passing around a clipboard and filling out waivers. The parking lot proclaimed a broad demographic: a shiny Cadillac Esplanade, a dusty Jeep Cherokee covered with progressive stickers, a Prius, pick-ups, mini-vans and station wagons. Families with small children mingled with seniors. College kids swigged coffee from commuter mugs. Teenagers horsed around. After a quick orientation with Gleaning and Volunteer Coordinator Ananda Jimenez, and an invitation to find carpool companions, we piled into vehicles and followed a white 18-wheeler about 10 miles south on Highway 101.

Thanks to this 19-year-old organization, by noon our brief agricultural labors will be over and we will save 4200 pounds of lettuce from being tilled under. Crops rescued from the plow by volunteers make up only about 1% of the total fresh produce that Ag Against Hunger distributes each year. The balance is produce already harvested and processed that becomes unsalable due to price fluctuations. Ag Against Hunger's network of about 50 growers and shippers are grateful for the opportunity to donate this surplus to food banks and human services agencies and enjoy the accompanying tax benefits.

Visit Gleaning Stories to hear audio recordings of gleaners (including me!). Their mission is to collect and broadcast the stories of gleaners in the Salinas Valley.

Rafting down the Rogue River

2009-07-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

I hadn't planned on dawdling in Southern Oregon. Just drive my friend Debbianne to her new home in Williams, Oregon, and get on the road by noon the next day to complete my drive from Portland to Monterey, California.

But what do you do when it's gonna be another hundred-degree day and your lovely hostess says "a bunch of us are going to float down the river. Why don't you come?" Here's what I did--reflected on the matter for oh, five minutes or so, and concluded that life is too short and unemployment too precious to decline such an invitation. Shortly, nine people, two trucks, four kayaks and a couple coolers of icy beers were winding their way north along the very scenic roads to the Galice Resort, where we rented a raft and gear and got a shuttle seven miles up the river, all for about $90.

After slathering up with sunscreen and cinching our PFD's tight (that's Personal Flotation Device, of course) we slid into the water for a few hours of leisurely floating, paddling and the occasional class I or II rapid, punctuated by a few refreshing swims. Surrounded by rugged hillsides and fragrant pines, we saw herons, mergansers, osprey and a couple of small dark swimming mammals--mink, perhaps?

We pulled out at the Galice Resort close to sunset, to a classic rock soundtrack from the live band up on their inviting deck. A little tailgate party followed: cold beer, watermelon, and chips. What a lovely way to spend a scorching afternoon.

Thanks to Michelle, the aforementioned lovely hostess, organizer, driver, and kayak-den-mother. Here she is!

Scream Sorbet: Fruity Frozen Farmers Market Delight

2009-05-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

Scream Sorbet is sharing the love at 17 farmers markets in the Bay Area: The love of true, pure, frozen flavors. Their mission is to make the best sorbet in the world, and I think they may be doing it! Imagine local, seasonal, mostly-organic fruit transformed, at the peak of perfection, into a dense, smooth, creamy scoop of frozen delight. Just fruit, sugar, water and--occasionally--pectin.

They are just beginning to usher out the vibrant winter citrus flavors (goodbye, Meyer lemon, Oro Blanco grapefruit, and lime-mint) and welcome the luscious flavors of summer (hello apricot, cherry-rhubarb, and strawberry). Some flavors know no season: chocolate (made with top-of-the-line Blanxart organic chocolate), cashew-caramel, pistachio. These nut flavors are astonishing: so creamy and thick, you'd swear a cow was involved.

Six flavors are featured at each farmers market, a teasingly small fraction of the 35 listed on the website. Many flavors are inventive, even visionary: I tried the coconut-lime-Thai basil and was dazzled by the interplay of tangy lime and herbaceous basil embraced by round buttery coconut milk. On my wish list: saffron-almond, coconut-lemongrass, beet-lemon, and pomegranate-blueberry. And the other thirty flavors.

They work the magic in an Emeryville catering kitchen and roam the Bay Area, from San Rafael to Monterey, where I was lured in by their very generous sampling policy, characterized by the following phrases: "anything else?" "try another" "here, try this."

Fort Ord: Mountain biking among the wildflowers

2009-05-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

Seldom have I seen a valley as a hawk does. As I approached one of the many crests on a steep fire road in Fort Ord, a former military reserve now open to the public, a hawk slipped over me on the breeze. I turned to watch it coast down the length of the whole valley, curving from ridge to ridge like a skier, never once flapping a wing, just riding the drafts as they effervesced over the slopes. It cruised over hills faded from green to brown like worn velvet, smudged with lavender from the distant lupines, circled over a small wetland and gained altitude again, effortlessly.

The dense woods of Oregon, which I love, would never offer a show like this. The bird would appear briefly overhead and vanish behind dense boughs, its path a mystery. Each raptor would have it's own strategy: the California hawk glimpsing prey from a great distance and approaching with stealth, the Northwest bird employing lightning-quick reactions to nab a creature unseen until the very last moment.

Goats, goats, glorious goats

2009-04-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Henceforth,
no spring will be complete for me without a visit to Harley Farms in Pescadero, California--a goat farm and cheese factory nestled in a green and picturesque valley moistened by ocean fog. I'm sure a visit any time of year is nice, but what happens in the spring? Baby goats do, that's what. As of April 1st or so, 267 had been born. Goat fans can not only tour the farm, the fields, the barn and the cheese kitchen, but also pet endless (very friendly) adult and baby goats, and even, with the explicit consent of Harley Farms, pick up, hug and kiss the babies. And even--can you believe it--milk a goat!! I was in heaven for two hours, and that wasn't even counting all the free samples of fresh goat cheese I scarfed down in their little shop.

All the babies are descendants of the first six goats acquired by Dee Harley over a decade ago. They are watched over by three guardian lamas, who instinctively protect their goat friends from predators in the fields. The babies stay with mama for about four days, then they are penned up together--separated by sex--and fed on re-hydrated sheep's milk as mama returns to the milking parlor for twice-daily milkings, at which she delivers about a gallon a day.

What else did I learn? A baby goat may nurse vigorously on your finger, but it won't hurt. A grown-up goat enjoys gently chewing on your clothes--they browsed on me like a shrub! A socialized goat really likes people and petting. Milking is hard--imagine getting a secure grip on a turgid water balloon and then coaxing the water out through a pinprick, a tablespoon at a time. I suspect carpal tunnel didn't originate with the typewriter, but with the domesticated dairy animal.

And the take-away advice: next time I'll choose gardening clogs over tennis shoes (they still smell like barnyard) and perhaps bring some knee pads, so I can kneel in the muck for maximum petting pleasure and picture-taking prowess.

2009-04-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

A three-day visit to my home town of Portland, Oregon, and all I did was eat. Really. Thai food, bar food, fancy tasting menu, homey crepes. It was divine.

One highlight was a five-course lunch at Bleu, the restaurant of the Western Culinary Institute. Now, I don't need five courses at lunch, but at $14.95, I managed to put them away, having skipped breakfast in anticipation. My very accommodating lunch date agreed to go halvsies on everything, and most courses included two choices, so we covered most of the bases.

Soup: potato leek or butternut squash puree.

Salad: shaved fennel and red onion, (too) lightly dressed with orange, garnished with orange and blood orange, or butter lettuce with peeled cherry tomatoes (had they been canned? in any case, very nice! they absorbed some of the excellent dressing) and bacon.

Appetizer: salmon mousse with asparagus tips, awash in beurre blanc, or a charcuterie plate showcasing two kinds of salumi, with 3 mustards, sliced apple and cornichons.

Main: clams (5 of 'em) with wide noodles, seasoned with curry, or pork loin with curry sauce and lentils.

Dessert: chocolate souffle with creme anglaise, or creme brulee.

All this, plus a coffee, tea or soda--a screaming deal. While the food was neither transcendent nor sublime, it ranged from fair (the fennel salad, grievously under-seasoned) to delish (the salmon mousse) and nicely portioned. We cleaned our plates throughout, until we were met with the substantial creme brulee, which defeated us both and returned to the kitchen unfinished.

Perhaps we ate too much bread: slices of an excellent baguette, served with three kinds of butter: plain, herbed, and honey-saffron. This last was delectable, although I'd prefer to see it on the breakfast table, not with my savories. On the whole, I will gladly be trying more cooking schools.

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

2009-04-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

Visiting Old San Juan feels like visiting Europe, including the collision of heavy tourist traffic with stately old buildings. Narrow streets, statues, flocks of begging pigeons, wrought-iron railings--but huge American cars are squeezed onto the tiny roads. And it's hot and humid. With the occasional tropic downpour.

There are a few heavily touristed streets, but when you get off that oh-so-trodden path, it's quite charming. The whole thing can be walked in a day, with fortifications from the various street vendors selling deep-fried goodies, ice cream and exotic snow cones.

I had my first sesame flavored snow cone. It will be my last. Imagine thin sweet tahini over crushed ice. As always, I'm happy to have tried something completely out of my usual sphere, even though it will doubtless stay there.

A more reliable--and expensive--frozen treat is the Pina Colada, alleged to have been invented in Old San Juan.

Swallowed up by the internet

2009-03-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."

I found this quote on a bookmark, attributed to St. Augustine, and liked it. I thought I'd include it on my blog, and in a fit of compulsive behavior, I thought I should know more about this St. Augustine fellow before I quoted him. While not intending to procrastinate (do I ever?) it sent me up the garden e-path and down slippery virtual slopes with little satisfaction.

First Wikipedia. Seems that there are three St. Augustine's. I decided on another strategy: find the quote, note the attribution and deduce which St. Augustine was so wise.

I've viewed, today, while I could perhaps have been doing something more productive, about a dozen sites that purport to be authorities on quotes. I tried searching for the above quote, and another recent favorite: "write drunk, edit sober" which I recently saw attributed to Hemingway, but a google search reveals Mark Twain to be another source. And while I found nothing on these two excellent philosophies, I made a survey of a number of websites, which I share.....

www.bartleby.com links to a number of useful resources, including dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, and a huge range of complete original sources, ranging from the Bhagavad-Gita to Cicero to W.E.B. DuBois. The selection seems to be restricted by the expiration of copyright: for example, the most recent non-fiction anthology they offer is Modern Essays, edited in 1921! Similarly, there are gaps: F. Scott Fitzgerald is represented only by This Side of Paradise. Nonetheless a rich resource, but it didn't resolve my question.

www.quotationspage.com was cluttered and clumsy. I was quickly put off after a few failed searches.

I decided to try a control quote, something more universally recognized. At www.quoteland.com I searched for "to be or not to be" and the site utterly failed me. A blank window appeared, without explanation, within the website's graphic framework. Useless.

Yahoo offered a directory of quote sites. www.wikiquote.com--that sounded promising! But again, no luck. It came up with vast quantities of quotes related by one or two random words, from such unlikely sources as "Family Guy" and "Grey's Anatomy." Pass.

www.quotations.com--they're for sale! No. Way.

www.quotations.about.com, part of the About.com empire. Lots of lists, curated by a single guide, no search function. Pass.

In conclusion, I cannot substantiate that the above quote was by St. Augustine, much less which St. Augustine, nor do I know whether it was Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway or another who wrote drunk and edited sober. While some of these rejected sites may offer better results with some in-depth study, hey! this is the internet. I want it fast and easy. I was sorely disappointed

I did find a few resources I'll return to:

www.Bartleby.com, while it failed in this hunt, seemed to be very useful, including such valuable resources as Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, and the potential of endless reading if I ever end up on a deserted island with only a single website.

www.ipl.org is the Internet public library! That rings my bells. There's a subheading: librarians' Internet index: websites you can trust. Hallelujah. And apparently we can submit questions to reference librarians. Perhaps they can substantiate my quotes. I'll be returning to this one.

www.madehow.com has nothing to do with quotes, but it is super cool. Seven volumes and searchable, with detailed explanations of how all kinds of things are made: tires, temporary tattoos, holograms, coins. Another bookmark.

Granted, this is about neither food nor travel, but about the travails of writing and especially fact-checking. If anyone has a reliable resource for verifying quotes, please! Share it with me. And I promise to return to my intended topics on my next post.

Escape to Carmel Valley

2009-03-09T20:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes travel isn't measured by the distance or the time spent, but by the sense of escape attained. That's what Saturday was like for me.

An author speaking at the Carmel Valley Village library caught my eye, so at 9 AM I embarked on a gorgeous drive, heading south from my parent's house near Monterey over the Laureles Grade and into Carmel Valley. It was clear and warm, with sculpted clouds accentuating the far-flung landscape. Looking at a map, I realized that Carmel Valley Road runs roughly parallel to Highway One: the two roads embrace Los Padres National Forest, so I was viewing the back of the coast range, the back side of Big Sur. No wonder it was fabulous. Winter rains have left the grasslands brilliantly verdant and wildflowers are beginning to bloom. An orchard of still-dormant, gnarled mossy trees rose above a blanket of mustard flowers. Rugged mountains (yes! over 4,500 feet) soared up from the valley floor, a patchwork of oak and scrubland and rock and meadow.

It reminded me of Malibu: the wild terrain tamed by a few roads, the panoramic views, the multi-million dollar homes. It seems like the immense wealth actually does infuse the air out there--I could smell it and taste it. Wineries, horses, tennis courts, and those palacial houses, scattered in the wilderness. Vanity vineyards--small residential plots of grapes--dot the terrain. A store displayed statuary of a massive scale: marble columns, enormous fountains, carved animals.

All the rampant wealth notwithstanding, it's a place of rapturous beauty on a spring day. After the library event, I strolled, I had a coffee, I popped into a few stores and then concluded with... a spontaneous photo safari! Mix is a store with a couple of acres devoted to large-scale imports for the garden from Southeast Asia. After a recent photography workshop, I was eager to try some of my new tricks on their photogenic merchandise.

An hour of photography, half an hour from home, was a low-budget vacation. It was the sense of leisure, more than the activities, that I carved out of a pedestrian Saturday morning that left me feeling refreshed and transported, having had a brief window into the lives of folks just over the hill, in a destination predictably embraced by the Beautiful People.

Cheval Bwa: A Kreyol Carousel in Martinique (with video at bottom)

2008-08-22T20:29:00.001-07:00

Our nearby town of Saint Anne was celebrating its saints day with concerts, vendors and a tiny carnival. I didn't pay much attention to the carousel until I realized the music was live, flavored with the courtly precision of accordion, the stately march of a drum and snappy percussion. As soon as I approached it I felt touched by something magical. An innocent, simpler past floated with the music into the night air, captivating me.

It was acoustic and human-powered—a huge broad-shouldered youth pushed the carousel around and slowed it when the song came to an end. Somehow it gave me a heartache to see it. The worn painted horses, made over the years by the hands of many artists. The foursome in the middle playing casually and effortlessly together. The children clinging to the horses, looking a little baffled by it all.

Four musicians were in the center: a seated man in a felt hat played a gleaming accordion; a slender dreadlocked woman kept time with a big double-headed drum; a percussionist rapped his sticks on the metal supports of the roof and a length of PVC pipe tied between them; and a man shook a big shaker, the size of a couple of stacked soup cans.

The musicians wore t-shirts depicting the carousel and captioned Cheval Bwa (kreyol for cheval de bois, wooden horse). A change of clothes and they could be playing in 1908 or 1888, in St. Pierre, Martinique or Mexico City or Beirut or Bordeaux. Only the couple of electric lights, the minor amplification, and the wooden car among the horses took it out of the nineteenth century.

Watching the children riding in the balmy night air felt like a window into the ages. The kids rode in endless circles as the song looped, on figures carved generations ago by craftsmen and artists of the bygone Caribbean. Imagine the lives of these pre-industrial carnies who built it and transported it by horse and wagon or boat, bringing it to fairs where its magic was rare and spectacular, in an era before playgrounds, cars or videogames.

The horses were pure folk-art, the envy of any gallery. One was built like a sawhorse, with clear blue marbles for eyes, its neck artfully set off-center from its body. Several had heads with small ears and exaggerated curves, rounded like cartoons. Some resembled traditional carousel horses, but smaller and beautifully worn. A few showed very little detail, just ears and muzzle, rounded from raw branches, not from lumber, and covered with chipping coats of paint revealing every color of the rainbow.

The cheval bwa left such an unexpected longing in my heart—wistful and nostalgic for a past beyond reach, rich with such innocent pleasures and handmade fun. No electricity, no gas, no hum of motor or grind of generator, just simple tunes and an exquisitely pleasant ride into the past on the warm buttery night air of Martinique.

I was interviewed by NPR!!

2008-07-22T12:07:00.001-07:00

NPR interviewed me by phone here in Martinique as part of the Adventure Vacation series on Weekend Edition Sunday, which focuses on listeners' travels this summer.

It was aired July 20, and is available on their website. Here's the link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92716715

Visiting la plage in Martinique

2008-07-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

On the beach in Martinique, being outnumbered by the locals is part of the fun.

More than at any other beachy place I've been to, the locals love la plage and spend plenty of time there. I never feel like I'm in a tourist zone at the beach, isolated from the people or targeted by enterprising hair braiders or jewelry vendors. Because the beach is such a vital social hub, an afternoon there is a cultural immersion as well as a sensory delight.

The sensory pleasure begins with the water--often strikingly clear and a delicious temperature, just cool enough to refresh as you ease yourself in. There are few waves, allowing you to bob gently up and down floating on your back as you're cradled by the salty water.

Swaying palms and dense lower trees cast welcome shade on the sand, ranging from beige to black. Vendors offer tempting snacks, especially delicious home-made sorbets. The most common flavor is sorbet coco, coconut subtly flavored with nutmeg, lime zest and (almond flavored) orgeat syrup. Sometimes they make passion fruit, mango, or peanut--all of them fantastic.

Now, during summer vacation, the beach is always packed, especially on Sundays. The water is thick with people: grandparents dandling little ones, dads towing kids on rafts or tossing them giggling into the sea, teens flirting and laughing. Athletic boys wrestle and show off, outdoing each other in fancy running flips down the sand and into the water. Young sweethearts embrace, stealing solitude in the hubbub. Tiny kids wearing water wings play in the sand or brave the shallows with a parent or older kid.

Extended families gather around tables laden with elaborate picnics. The tantalizing smell of poulet Colombo (creole chicken curry) drifts out of enormous pressure cookers as overflowing plates are passed. Grandparents, kids, aunts and uncles nibble on drumsticks and pour plastic cups of soda or pop open icy cans of beer. They might have come for a week, what with the awnings, clotheslines, hammocks, coolers, folding chairs and inflatable toys that surround them.

Big groups of teens and twenty-somethings cluster in the shade, giggling, wresting and roughhousing. Some of these kids arrive on organized excursions from other parts of the island, arriving in huge buses out of which massive sound systems are unloaded and erected on the beach for dancing and flirting in the sand.

The beach is Martinique's summer-time living room, alive with laughter, shouting, volleyball and music--a riot of activity which turns our afternoon swim into a complete cultural experience, like visiting a baseball game in the U.S. or a bullfight in Spain.

Martinique: Paradise in the French Antilles

2008-06-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow for five weeks in Martinique, where I'll be cooking for a group of students. My brother is a professor of archaeology at the University of South Carolina and is leading a dig there. Here's a picture from my previous cooking gig there in 2005.

Memories of black sand beaches, white sand beaches, rum, coconut sorbet, snorkeling, poulet colombo (creole chicken curry), daily baguettes, and swaying palms lure me back to this lush volcanic island. I'll post updates when I can, so I hope you'll check in occasionally.

Also, if you listen to NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday," you may hear me! They are doing a segment on listeners' summer vacations, and plan to call me in Martinique for a brief interview while I'm there.

A Truly Divine Pastry -- Paris, September 2007

2008-06-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

Here is my only record of possibly the best pastry of my entire life. Because they wrapped it so beautifully, I took a picture of the exquisite little package before tearing into it, and thus documented the name of the establishment: Y. Chantrelle, Patissier - Chocolatier, Paris 12eme. It was on a corner, it was packed with hungry fans, and the window was delicious to behold.

The sublime pastry is the fig-topped one on the left. Layers of moist, dense, chewy coconut cake cradle mango mousse, topped with a passion fruit glaze. The name, Arawak, reflects its tropical inspiration. We ordered the Arawak and its brother pastry (topped with rhubarb mousse, it was also quite delicious) and carried them across the street to a sidewalk table at a cafe, where we ordered two coffees, unwrapped the jewels, and savored them with our tiny coffee spoons.

A Truly Beautiful Pastry -- Paris, September 2007

2008-06-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

Could there be a more princessy pastry than this? Look--it even matches the china! I was invited to this tres charmant, elegant, old-world tea house by my family friend Jeanne, who lives in a very stylish apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower. The interior is all heavy drapes and gilt columns and marble-topped tables. One can easily imagine stylish big-hatted ladies meeting here for coffee and gossip a century ago. Founded in 1862, Laduree is famous for French-style macarons, but I preferred my choice.

It is a double-decker cream-puff, filled with a rose custard and raspberries. The pastry was as delicious as the atmosphere and the company. Thank you, Jeanne.

Introducing Palette Pioneer

2008-01-22T22:11:00.001-08:00

At last, I begin a blog. Here I will share my experiences eating & traveling, locally and abroad. Enjoy!

In my signature photo at the top, I'm fondling a giant ice cream cone in Copenhagen in May 2006. Danes are said to eat more ice cream per capita than any other nation, and Denmark is the source of the celebrated giant freshly made waffle cone. A special treat is the so-called "Americaner" (a random name--I'm sure it got its name before my brother and I became addicted to it) which is composed of several assorted scoops of ice cream in a big waffle cone, topped with whipped cream and strawberry sauce, and crowned with a flodeball.

A flodeball is another beloved Danish delicacy: a thin wafer cookie piled high with soft marshmallow-y meringue and coated with chocolate. Exhibit B, below. My brother Ken is diving into one purchased from the confectioners counter in Magasin, the Nordstoms of Denmark. Flodeballer are also available in molded plastic clamshell 6-packs from the grocery store: a fraction of the cost and quality of the version seen below, but still beloved.

My aunt in Denmark used to have two golden retrievers, Bonnie and Olford. On the dogs' birthdays, my grandmother would come over with a 6-pack of flodeballer and feed them to the dogs one by one. Lucky dogs! And when she'd fly to LA to visit us, she always managed to bring 6 or 12 of the treats carry-on for the poor deprived American grandchildren to enjoy. Lucky us!