“Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.”

– Oscar Wilde, author

Buenos Aires – A couple of months ago I received a note from a charming young man in the San Francisco area who writes a blog called Cooking With The Single Guy. He wanted to reserve a spot at Casa SaltShaker, but in addition, wondered if he could come and spend the afternoon hanging out and chatting about food. While I work alone in the kitchen prepping for the dinners, it’s always nice to have some sort of auditory stimulation going on – when I’m on my own, the stereo in the living room gets cranked up to full volume so I can hear it in the kitchen – and a conversation is not only a different and welcome sort, but sometimes actually helps clarify what I’m doing in any given moment. So he popped by about six weeks ago and spent a couple of hours probing away at the origins of Casa S, my cooking career, and how I ended up here. He just published the interview on his blog this morning – it’s definitely the Reader’s Digest version of the several hours we spent together, as expected, but I think he did a nice job of presenting the gist of what we talked about – so if you’ve been wondering how it all got started – a) you haven’t been reading my blog long enough, and b) you have a chance to get another viewpoint at it….

“Most turkeys taste better the day after, my mother’s tasted better the day before.”

– Rita Rudner, comedienne

Buenos Aires – Just to set your minds at ease, we did indeed celebrate Thanksgiving here. Not in Casa S, but we headed over to friends’ in San Telmo for a turkey dinner with the fixin’s. While there’s no domestic turkey raising going on here in Argentina, or at least not at a commercial level, there is in Brazil, and frozen turkeys are brought in by the truckload around this time of year for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s holidays.

Our master carver, and host, contemplates the 8 kilo (nearly 18 pound) turkey….

A table full of good friends….

And Henry, stuffed fuller than the turkey, after his first Thanksgiving feast.

1 kilo green beans, topped and cut into segments
1 kilo asparagus, peeled and cut into segments
1 kilo potatoes, boiled, peeled, and cut in bite size pieces

Blanch the beans and asparagus until just softening, then drain and shock under cold water.

2 packets of peanut drink powder (this is the tough one, it’s a Thai drink mix that comes in a bag of little packets, it’s a mix of ground roasted peanuts and sugar – I find it in Chinatown – not that hard, you just have to make the trip…)
½ cup of shredded coconut
½ kilo smoked bacon, diced
4-5 shallots, sliced thin
¼ cup of yellow mustard seeds (black are fine too with this recipe)
4-5 jalapeños or other medium hot peppers, sliced thinly
½ cup neutral oil
salt

In a saute pan, start cooking the diced bacon over medium heat until it starts to brown. Add the oil and the mustard seeds and cook until they are popping away. Add the shallots and cook until limp. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook, stirring fairly steadily, until the coconut just starts to turn golden. Pour over the mixed vegetables, toss, let cool. Season with salt to taste.

Obviously, that makes a whole lot – you can cut the ingredient quantities down as need be. Bacon optional for those who want a vegetarian version, and adjust away on the hot peppers to make it either less or more spicy.

“A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable language that originates seemingly as a nativized pidgin…. While it is arguable that creoles share more grammatical similarities with each other than with the languages they phylogenetically derive from, no theory for explaining creole phenomena has been universally accepted. The relationship between pidgins and creoles and their similarities means that the distinction is not clear-cut and the variety of phenomena that arise to create pidgins and creoles are not understood very well. Likewise, efforts to articulate grammatical features (or sets of features) that are exclusive to creoles have been unsuccessful thus far.”

– Wikipedia

“Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom?”

– Terry Pratchett, Author

I’ve mentioned before that we offer cooking classes here at Casa SaltShaker. In the past, it’s primarily just been a simple, if you want to learn how to make something in particular, let me know, we’ll schedule a time, and we’ll do that – and we’ll still have that option available. But one of the most common requests I get is to know “what’s on your class schedule coming up?” And since we’ve never had a class schedule, it’s been tough to give that one a solid answer, you know? That’s all about to change. We’re going to start offering a series of classes for 1-3 people at a time (and if there’s more interest, we’ll work out more than one day/time to offer the same class) – both single session classes as well as multiple session ones.

There is now a page accesible in the right-hand column of the blog, easy to look at and see what’s coming up, along with a detailed description of each class.

Now, it may seem like an ambitious first class, but I had a recent request from a young gentleman here in town to learn “the basics of Italian cooking”. As he put it, while he can follow a recipe and cook something for dinner, he finds himself feeling like an artist who doesn’t have or understand the color palate. So the first offering is going to be a ten session, yes, ten session, hands-on Introduction to Italian Cooking – during each of which we’ll end up producing 2-4 dishes, and sitting down together and enjoying them. I haven’t finalized the times with the original requestor yet, though I think we’re be aiming at Tuesday morning carrying into lunch – as I said, if there’s enough interest, we can schedule this for another day and time as well.

If joining us for the Color Palate of Italy strikes your fancy, drop me a line and let’s organize the class(es). If something else is on your mind – let me know that – whether you want me to setup an individual class for you, or add it to the public schedule – let’s get cooking!

“I like radio better than television because if you make a mistake on radio, they don’t know. You can make up anything on the radio.”

– Phil Rizzuto, baseball player, sports announcer

Buenos Aires – Harkening back to the posts from last week covering my trip in Mendoza, I mentioned a couple of times David & Rachel Cane who were part of the trip. They have a weekly radio show called A Matter of Taste. One of the days during our hour or so break between wineries, they whipped out a digital tape recorder and grilled me about life here in Argentina, Casa SaltShaker, mate, and various other subjects. They just broadcast the interview as part of their hour show this last weekend – my part starts about the midpoint of the broadcast, though the whole show is quite fascinating (it’s been slightly edited down to 53 minutes) – I recommend giving it a listen!

A Matter of Taste with David & Rachel Cane

“Some may try and tell us that this is the end of an era. But what they overlook is that in America, every day is a new beginning, and every sunset is merely the latest milestone on a voyage that never ends. For this is the land that has never become, but is always in the act of becoming. Emerson was right: America is the land of tomorrow.

– Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the U.S.

Buenos Aires – The party was a success. Lots of guests, more than I knew, or imagined were coming. A few who couldn’t make it at last minute. Fun gifts. Wine, champagne, pizzas (my “Chicago style”, of course), empanadas (spicy bbq, squash & green onion), chips and dip, the ubiquitous crudité (which people actually finished off, who knew?), and ceviche. Quite the combo, no? I leave the rest in the hands of captioned photos – a picture being worth, and all that…

Amy (in from Boston) and Adam (in from San Jose)

Me chatting away, Kevin (local restaurant owner) looking on

Henry’s niece Jheny, sister Silvia, niece Viviana, who wouldn’t leave the kitchen to mingle until I threatened to send them back to La Plata for the night…

On the outsides, Adriana and Eduardo (in from Uruguay), Elizabeth (now 7 months pregnant), and Juan (both local)

Diego, Nestor, and Martha, all local

Henry with friends Lucho, Jorge, and Damian, all in from La Plata

Kevin, Mike, Bettye, Allan, Martha and Barbara – all local friends

Wow… Adam (San Jose), Brian (Seattle), Bob (Brooklyn), James (Prague), Lucho and Jorge (La Plata), Hernan (local)

Henry entering, singing, with my birthday cake (spiced chocolate, chocolate ganache frosting, toasted coconut, lots of candles, though thankfully, not 50 of them)

Ready to blow out the candles, whenever they finish singing…

The cake, plus a chocolate strawberry cheesecake and a vanilla orange cheesecake – all reduced to crumbs within five minutes

I’ve been saving this three liter bottle of sparkling just for this occasion! Lots of trouble getting the cork out – took five of us taking turns!

And, in case you were wondering, it’s a bottle of 1998 Iron Horse Vineyards “Good Luck Cuvee” – thanks go out to friend and winery owner Joy Sterling, who gave it to me years ago, though didn’t know I’d save it for this event.

Opening presents…

…there were lots of them!

In bed by 1:30, a good night’s sleep, and… on with the next 50!