New Year, New Clothes, New Luck

A self-imposed ban from shopping did not allow me to get any new clothes for Chinese New Year this year. So, I was gifted this instead:

I had to agree to a new job as an assistant chocolate maker and move to Washington, DC to get it, but small price to pay for a new lucky shirt, right?

Watch this video of my new boss, doing everything I will be doing in 3 short weeks. 

Undone Chocolate is an organic bean to bar chocolate company that has just 2 ingredients: cacao and sugar. 

Read more, and then buy some! 

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this new adventure, and once I find a place to live in DC, and pack and move from Pittsburgh, and settle in, I'll blog all about it under a cherry tree. 

Thank you to all of those who have been nothing but crazy supportive and sending me all their good juju to me. Come visit me!!

Salud, Por Que La Belleza Sobra

Adventure: Miami

When flying to a city in which you know no one and are not looking to be a total hermit, the best way to meet non-sketchy people are to stay in a hostel (meet them before the free happy hour tour starts), or Couch Surf. Pros and cons to both methods, but for this one trip, I decided to Couch Surf.

I started finding strangers on the internet and asking to stay with them 4 years ago, when I had 3 weeks off from my nannying gig in Paris, and decided to got to Spain. I had such a great time while surfing there that I tried to stay active in the community as much as possible. Met great friends through it, and it was how I found a place to stay initially when I moved to Pittsburgh. All in all, it's been great for me, and I've met some wonderful people through it.

My host told me she'd be working that evening, and given how I got it in my head that the Fruit and Spice Park was going to be the most amazing place ever (it totally was), I did my own thing, and ended up having dinner at the restaurant she works at. Yup, I found a random stranger on the internet, and she happens to be a cook!

So, for all you skeptics about Couch Surfing out there, I feel like I have to make the case for how wonderful it is, but for that to happen, you'd have to have an open mind, and have traveled/stayed in hostels/ met people out of your comfort zone. If that hasn't happened, well, I'm sorry, I feel like your life is a little less rich for it. In my case, I've only surfed in Europe, where there is a distinctly different attitude about travelers, and meeting strangers, I feel. Hospitality, is the word, I believe. It is my current industry, as is my host's, so when I got to her house, this was the welcome I received:

A curated selection of Cuban and Guatemalan pastries. Couch Surfers are awesome!!

Friday morning was spent taking the sun at Bill Baggs State Park, and me getting really hungry when I saw a live sea urchin next to my foot...

No sea urchin in this picture, but this star fish was bigger than my head.  I love how clear the water is!

I met up with my host in the late afternoon, when we had my first bite of Cuban food. I guess after years of rationing, to be in the land of plenty it means to have plates that match it. I inhaled a plate of steak with rice, beans, and tostones, and then killed half of my host's breaded chicken, and then we went and got chincharones, pork belly, plantain chips, and a mamey milkshake. All for me. Yes. Fatty.

Mesa's BBQ. Home of the best chincharones ever. 

Saturday brought me to my beloved pupusas, at the Pupusa Factory. So most of the immigrant population has been priced out of Miami proper, and probably Little Havana as well. Hialeah is the border town/Latin mecca where you're kinda screwed if you don't speak Spanish. Immigrants tend to stay with their own, and so next to Hialeah is Doral, where property prices have been driven up by rich Venezuelans and Colombians.

These pupusas are huge!! I normally order 3, but I barely finished 1! The one on the left is a shrimp and cheese one, with rice flour masa!

I did insist on going to Little Havana for some ice cream. I will admit, the movie Chef was very instrumental in getting me there. I had grand plans of dancing the night away at Hoy Como Ayer and eating cubanos at Versailles. Everyone I spoke with told me I was insane. No one goes to Little Havana for everything, and the atmosphere at these places are old, like senior citizen old. I guess it's a nostalgia factor; old Cubans who came when Castro took power, and in building this little enclave, this "little" Havana, it's how they kept their way of life alive, from playing dominoes at the park, to the multitude of cigar shops. And now, they are nothing more than a tourist attraction themselves.

"See here, a fossilized Cuban in his natural habitat..." I sat and chatted with my host's sister as I watched tourists hover over these men doing noting but going about their days, and yet their customs and habits will be recorded and Instagrammed....

I don't think the spirit of Little Havana has died yet, especially if there's such sweet spots as Azucar. Reviews of exotic flavors led me there, and while there was a lack of current crazy flavors, I did have the most delicious almond ice cream ever. None of the sickening almond extract, it was like eating churned almond butter. I had that and a Tagalong-peanut butter concoction. Que delicioso!

My eyes led me to this corner explosion of senses, the Cubaocho Art and Research Center was a block down from Azucar, and wow. Just wow. Instead of rushing off to have dinner after inhaling so much ice cream, I just had to sit down and take it all it. And have a mojito. I guess it's a Cuban saying, after you say "Salud", you follow it up with "por que la bellaza sobra," which all translates "to your health, because you're already so beautiful."

Dinner was an introduction to Colombian food that wasn't arepas. Pacaton, which are giant tostones, which are fried, unriped bananas. Oh, my belly.

Patacon de pollo

Oh my belly. I'll be back, Miami.

Hildago, Contigo, Baby Why Don't We Go...

Adventure: Miami, Florida
Length: 3 days

Ok, so I never learned the lyrics to the Beach Boys. It wasn't until after I spent days pouring over maps of Southern Florida in search of the best beaches that I learned that it was Key Largo, and not Hildago, because to me, it was so naturally "Contigo" afterwards... Well, now I know about Montego Bay.... Enunciate, people, enunciate! It took hearing it on while scanning the radio on my rental car for me to figure it out. At least I wasn't Jason Waterfalls.... (I know, I'm horrible. I love it.)

Anyways, there is only one acceptable reaction to seeing flights to Miami for $180 round trip after a fake out of a Snowmaggedon happens, and that is to buy the tickets immediately. The second task is to make a list of all things you want to eat.

Which led me to 35 acres of fruit trees, called the Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead, Florida, about 45 minutes south of Miami (Admission: $8). The promise of over 160 varieties of mangoes, and the ability to eat all the fruit I want that has fallen on the ground, I headed over as soon as I got my rental car.

Sidenote: I've only rented a car once before this, and this was a completely different feeling all together. It is extremely cheap (like, 7 bucks a day, but taxes and fees are like 8 bucks on top of that), and since the transport in Miami isn't all that great, and all the good Latin food is now in Hialeah, a car makes sense. 

After inhaling a lobster roll at the Mango Cafe on premises (as many ingredients sourced from the park as possible), I got on the tram for the 3:00 tour. It was a couple from California, myself, and the tour guide, who immediately took us off road, stopping every few feet to pluck things off bushes and trees for us to taste and smell.

Nostalgia, an edible flower. Spicy, like a radish, nice fresh crunch. Wouldn't mind that in my salad. 

Brown noser as I am, I was taking notes and asking questions to the point the paranoid guide asked me if I was reporting him or something. I said I was a pastry chef, and kinda obsessed with anything I can eat. He did take this to heart, and followed all following introductions of plant life with whether or not it was edible.

Jackfruits can grow upwards of over 70 pounds each. Size 8 female food for reference

Sadly, my beloved mangoes were not in season. Some avocados had started to flower, but still too soon. My favorite was a stop that was just for me (actually, there ended being a lot of those because of my questions. The 30 minute tour lasted for 1.5 hours because of me, but I didn't mind), when I asked about starfruits.

It's been so long since I've had a star fruit that I barely remember what it tasted like. Star fruits were part of my childhood, from my mother's childhood. Dipping fruit in salt very much a South East Asian thing to do, and people would look at me funny when I suggested it. We used to spend our summers filling our bellies with strawberries dipped in salt, until my later years when I discovered sugar, and when strawberries stopped being so sweet... But the star fruits were always tart, and always needed salt. Until now.

The rule in the park is you can eat anything on the ground, as long as it's not poisonous (duh). Be safe and only eat what you recognize. I would have eaten my fill if I wasn't saving room for dinner, and then the big fat maracuya/guanábana smoothie I didn't know I was going to have later....

If you are already down in Homestead to visit the Park, where they don't sell any fruit, then you have to drive 15 minutes further to the Robert Is Here Fruit Stand, home of the Key Lime Pie Milk Shake, and all the fruits seen in the park and more. I didn't want any dairy in my drink, so I had just fruit and ice, with just a tad of sugar to sweeten it. Perfection. I ordered passion fruit (maracuya) and guanábana, which is soursop (also known as custard apple or sugar apple).

Fun fruit facts:

- Jamaica Cherry, or Strawberry Tree (Muntingia Calabura): sorry, no photo. As luck would even have it, there was but one berry that was even ripe and ready to go, and as pastry chef, I got to try it. THIS FRUIT TASTES LIKE COTTON CANDY. And not in a gross Lip Smackers kinda of way (RIP Bonnie Bell), it was refreshing, without the sick sugary finish.

- Miracle Fruit, (Synsepalum dulcificum): a small berry native of West Africa that when eaten (well, sucked the thin layer of flesh off the fat seed), it alters your taste buds and makes everything sour taste sweet. We had a cold lemon to try, and it was like the most refreshing glass of fresh made lemonade on a hot summer day.... This may have been why my smoothie tasted so amazing afterwards, but it had been more than an hour after I ate the berry, so perhaps not.

- Sapote family: Mamey Sapote, Sapodilla, Black Sapote, and Canistel: Sweet potato in fruit form? I don't even know how to describe it, because this family is so damn unique.

I had the mamey in milkshake form; it was too sweet potato-y for me, but is a very popular batido (milkshake) flavor at most Latin restaurants in the area.

I bought a few sapodillas at Robert Is Here to bring back to Pittsburgh, based on description alone: pear with brown sugar. Didn't disappoint. I have 2 remaining and deciding what to do with them.

I read about Black Sapote as a chocolate replacement; because it looks like chocolate pudding, and taste kinda like it. I would have liked to try it again chilled and with some whipped cream. Has lots of potential, but fruit like that doesn't travel very well, so shipping is no bueno.

Canistel, also sometimes known as egg fruit, has insides that and has the texture of a hard boiled egg yolk. It's crazy. Like all sapote fruits, they have to ripen to the point of mush in your hands. I did not know this, all I knew was that I saw a piece of fruit on the ground, and the park rules said I could eat it.... Furtively glancing about in case I was going to get yelled at.. I sunk my teeth in, got a mouth full of wax...But the ones I bought home are ripened, and I am enjoying it in tequila smoothie form... Yum.

Black Sapote. Needs whipped cream.

Sapodilla. Tastes like pear with brown sugar. Delicious.

Stay tune for the Latin foods of Miami Hialeah.