Corduroy Orange

So, I just noticed someone (enjoying?) a 24-ounce Pepsi for their breakfast beverage. I wonder how many of them someone who drinks one for breakfast has over the course of a day, but I’m going to go ahead and assume if someone is willing to crack one open at 8 in the am, it’s likely a daily occurance. My curiosity piqued, I looked at the nutritional information and calculated sugar consumption over the course of a year.

A 24-ounce Pepsi has 83 grams of sugar in it. Converting at 28.35 grams per ounce, that’s 2.93 ounces of sugar in the bottle. Assuming just 1 bottle per day, that’s going to multiply out to a whopping 66.78 pounds of sugar over the course of a year, just with breakfast alone!

To put that in perspective for those of us who could never imagine drinking a soft drink in the morning, to match that sugar consumption would require stirring 6.7 tablespoons of granulated sugar into your coffee every day.

On a completely unrelated topic, I wonder why both obesity and diabetes are on the rise?

It’s the end of my first full day in Belize.  I swam in the Carribean and scoped out some tropical fish.  I made tentative plans to go on a fishing charter later this week (so I can prepare and enjoy the freshest seafood possible).  And, most importantly, I went shopping for local ingredients and used them to create some Belizean cuisine.

OK, so I don’t knows for a fact that a Belizean food scholar would deem this creation to be traditional Belizean cuisine…but having created it from local ingredients, I think it qualifies.

Jesse’s Belizean Papaya Saute

• one onion, cut to small dice
• one mirliton, cut to small dice
• one inch of ginger, minced
• 1/4 inch strip of habanero pepper, meat only (no pith!), minced
• 1/2 papaya, cut to julienne
• Juice of 1/2 large lime
• juice of 3 tangerines
• 3/4 cup - 1 cup local yogurt
• 3-4 tablespoons of butter
• salt to taste

Melt the butter in a saute pan.  Add the onion with a pinch of salt and saute, briefly, until it starts to soften.  Add ginger and habanero, and cook until the onion has started to caramelize and the ginger is starting to crisp up just a bit.  Add the mirliton and another pinch of salt.  Saute until the mirliton has softened and is starting to release its faintly tart aroma.  Add the papaya to the pan and toss briefly so that the papaya heats up–but don’t let it cook too long, especially if the papaya is good and ripe–you don’t want it to get mushy!

Once the papaya has had a chance to heat, deglaze with the mixed citrus juices; let it reduce for about 45 seconds, then stir in the yogurt.  Toss so that the yogurt combines with remaining citrus juices to form a sauce, then serve in fashionable bowls to appreciative diners.  Garnish with a slice of lime, if desired.

Photo Credit: Julia Luscher Thompson

Mr. Orange–

We made about four times as much Caesar Salad dressing as we should have last week.  It’s been in the fridge ever since.  Do you think it’s still safe to eat?

If you followed the traditional Caesar Salad dressing recipe calling for raw egg yolks, then, no, you shouldn’t eat it unless you’re looking to make friends with Sal Monella.

Next time you make Caesar dressing, try substituting hard boiled egg yolks for the raw yolks.  Even cooked, the egg yolks maintain their emulsificating abilities, and will yield a silky-smooth dressing that is safe to store and use over a several day period, thereby eliminating the need to make your homemade Caesar dressing to order.  Simply mash the yolks into a paste with some olive oil, and follow the standard Caesar recipe from there.  For a tasty treat, crumble the egg whites on top of your salad.

There’s still plenty of good grilling time in the Northern Hemisphere until winter takes hold. In the southern hemisphere, you should be looking forward to a long summer of tasty grilled meals. Either way, here’s a great recipe for you to use.

Spicy Grilled Pineapple

Cut the skin from a fresh pineapple and divide it into quarters through the core. Using the tip of your knife, remove the core from each 1/4 pineapple. Slice on the bias into “gems” of desired thickness: I recommend about one-half inch. Season each slice on both sides with a touch of salt and a sprinkling each of cinnamon, allspice, and crushed red pepper.

Grill, and serve immediately to rave reviews.

I’ve often said that there’s a connection between food and any other subject out there.  On occasion, I’ll get a taker who challenges me with subjects they think are unrelated, but so far, there’s always been a connection.  Here are a few examples; and if you don’t buy it after that, throw a couple of topics out there.  Bet you there’s a link.

Food and…

…Sports:

• Concession stands at all levels of competition, from pee wee to the pros
• Nutritionists working with some pros to help them achieve weight and maintain physical fitness
• Sports stars (among other highly paid individuals) hiring private chefs to cook for them.

…Fashion:

• Beets, tea, and coffee as fabric dyes
• The costume of a chef: double-breasted jacket and toque
• Food companies using t-shirts as advertising spaces

…Astronomy:

• Planting by the lunar calendar
• Feeding the astronauts in a weightless environment

…Paleontology:

• Paleoscatology
• Whether dinosaurs were carnivores or herbivores impacts how their fossilized remains are interpreted.  Within the past several years, many dinosaur postures have been re-interpreted to reflect this understanding, producing, for example, a much fiercer-looking Tyranosaurus Rex that uses its tail for balance in an obviously predatory stance than used to be imagined, standing erect and seemingly lumbering and slow.

…Climate:

• Different regions are able to grow different crops.  You’re not going to find, for instance, grapes, chocolate, and citrus all growing in the same region.

…Automotive Engineering:

• Is responsible for creating the many trucks that ship foods across climate zones so you can find products from around the world in your local store.

…Sex:

• C’mon, use your imagination!

…Music:

• Metaphorically, the different notes that compose a dish work like chords or notes.  Some are pleasing when combined; others clash dischordantly.
• The music played by an eating establishment can do wonders to establish its tone and attract/ repel various clientele (grandma and grandpa are not likely to be found in the punk rock bar; whereas Johnny Rotten would likely steer quite clear of the Sunday morning smooth jazz brunch).

…Crime:

• Legitimate food shipments can be used to provide cover for contraband shipped across international borders.

…Logging:

• Of tropical hardwoods threatens the future of certain nuts (eg Brazil Nuts) and spices (eg nutmeg, mace).
• Certain food trees are also logged for their woods (walnut, maple, cherry, etc.)

…Anything else? Name it–I bet you there’s a connection.

Freshly made lemonade is always better than the stuff from a bottle in my book. Here’s a simple yet tasty variation on the theme.

* A fistful of fresh mint (don’t be shy)
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 cup water
* 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 8-12 lemons, depending on the size)
* 3-4 cups ice water

Combine the sugar and the 1 cup of water in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the mint (washed), stems and all. Let the mint steep in the simple syrup for at least 20 minutes to half an hour, or longer if you have the time.

I made my syrup a day before I needed it and let the mint steep for about three hours as the syrup cooled to room temp, but if you’re in more of a hurry, the shorter time span should do fine. If you are doing the quick version, though, refrigerate the steeped syrup or stir it over an ice bath to chill it to room temperature before proceeding to the next step.

Strain the mint leaves out of the syrup as you pour it into a pitcher large enough to hold the finished lemonade. Stir in the lemon juice and ice water. Serve immediately, or keep refrigerated. Garnish each glass with a spring of mint and a slice of lemon, if desired.

I stopped into a bar called Bodega tonight on N High Street in Columbus, OH, and the beer list was tremendous with more than 50 on tap. Even better, all drafts are half-priced between 4 and 8 pm, so my Stone Ruination IPA (a great beer, available in bottles at Hough’s in Pittsburgh) only cost me $2.75.

There were others I wanyed to sample, of course, such as the BORIS the crusher imperial stout from hoppin frog brewery in Akron, but with only one tv in the joint and a Cavs game conflicting, there weren’t no way I was getting the Pens game on the wall, so I vacated for other environs.

But, I must confess to snatching a beer list for my reference. As a note included in the menu explains, the list is obsolete by the time it appears because they swap out their kegs with such frequency. All the same, though, I took the plastic case it goes in and I feel sorta bad about that. BuÞ I tipped the waitress well and hopefully I’ll be sending a little more business your way.

!odega is located at 1044 N High Street in Columbus and you should check it out if life guides you toward that city for a day or three.

A well prepared meal is quite possibly the most pleasurable experience that can legally be sold.

…seems to be the attitude of Coca Cafe in Lawrenceville when it comes to seasonal foods.

I stopped into Coca this morning for breakfast and the first thing that caught my eye on the menu was their roasted vegetable omelette, which is described as containing seasonal vegetables.  “What’s in  the roasted vegetable omelette today?” I asked the waitress.

“It’s always got spinach, onions, tomatoes…” and she named another vegetable or two, but she lost me at tomatoes.

“Tomatoes don’t sound very seasonal,” I commented.  She stared at me blankly, clearly not catching my drift.  I pointed at the menu.  “The menu says that it contains ’seasonal vegetables,’ but tomatoes aren’t in season.”

“Oh,” she replied.  “Well, we get them in from our suppliers, who get them in from…” she paused briefly.  “from wherever they’re in season,” she concluded.  “And, they’re only grape tomatoes.”

All right, so first off, if the omelette always contains the same thing, why isn’t it described on the menu as to what it contains?  Moreover, to use the word ’seasonal’ to describe something that always is the same is a blatant lie and completely contradicts the entire notion of seasonality… especially when used to describe tomatoes in Pennsylvania in February! And how does it make any difference if they’re grape vs. cherry, beefsteak, or other?

The ‘wild’ mushroom omelette I got instead (containing portobello and shiitake mushrooms) was somewhat under seasoned.  I got it with goat cheese, but as I was eating it decided that I should have requested the herbed goat cheese that is listed on the menu as the stuffing for herbed goat cheese french toast.  Or maybe I should have just gotten the herbed goat cheese french toast.

The waitress described the bread used to make the toast that came on the side as being pumpernickel.  In actuality, it was rye.  The jelly that accompanied it was in a reusable stainless steel souffle cup, though— a touch that I appreciated (I don’t understand why so many places use those disposable jelly packs: surely it would cost them less to get a few bulk jars of jelly and serve a side dish of your choice of jam?  Especially since they’re already washing dishes anyway.)

I’m not going to assign an orange rating to Coca for the time being.  I’d like to eat there once or twice more before I make up my mind about them.  But if you happen to stop in there for brunch sometime soon, ask them what’s in the roasted vegetable omelette.  And then when they tell you, let them know that tomatoes aren’t seasonal!  Just because it’s 5:00 somewhere doesn’t mean I’m pouring myself a whiskey for breakfast.  Just because it’s summer somewhere doesn’t mean tomatoes should be passed off as a seasonal choice.

Coca Cafe is located at 3811 Butler Street in Lawrenceville.  (412) 621-3171

Aurora has never never believed me when I have told her that I don’t like seviche.  “You like fish,” she tells me, “whether it’s raw or cooked; and you like citrus; you ilke vegetables.  You like everything that’s in it.”

Reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom would try to convince me to eat things I didn’t like.  Like succoutash.  I think I’m spelling that.  I don’t really even know what it is except that it has corn in it because I remember not liking it as a kid so I have a mental block on it, even if I probably really ought to try it because I’d probably love it now.  But the fact remains that I didn’t like seviche; I’d relate it to gazpacho, which to this day is a soup I’ve only liked once, when I got Whole Foods’s take on it one time in New Orleans, and then it wasn’t even mine because I knew I didn’t like gazpacho so there wasn’t really enough for me so I only got a taste.

So when I asked Aurora where she wanted to go for her birthday, she had her answer ready in an instant.  “Seviche,” she said.  “I’m going to prove to you that you like it.:”

Four months later, we finally got around to visiting.  Turns out I’m pretty fond of their take on the dish, but unfortunately, I still feel like I only got a taste.  Portions are small, and prices are just a bit higher than I’d like them to be–but then again, it is downtown so they’ve got to pay for the real estate.

Rory and I split two trio samplers of offferings from their seviche bar, so we got to taste 6 of their 7 styles.  But every time you order, you can choose what fish you want the various flavors matched with, and the fish choices change daily, so there’s an endless number of combinations you could have.

Aurora and I numbered our cocktail napkin with the number denoting each style and listed the fish we wanted for that style.  Our excellent waiter, Barry, laughed and thanked us, saying, “I wish everybody would do this, it would make my job a lot easier!”  As he rang our order through the POS system, he paused and came back.  “Listen,” he said, “I was thinking that on two of these choices, you should swap the fish that you asked for–the salmon goes really wel;l with the mango, and the shrimp goes better with the avocado.”

Sure, why not–thanks for the tip!  Six of our choices were variations on seviche: citrus-garnished sashimi; vegetable relish on raw oysters.  But even the traditional seviches were pleasing to my palate.  I think texture may have played a role; the components were all finely diced by a cook who shows evidence of pretty good knife skills.  The larger chunks I’ve had in other seviches are more of a turn-off to me.

We also sampled the happy hour braised pork special appetizer.  Aurora described it as “pulled pork on top of jambalaya,” with manchego chesses on top of that.  No kidding.  It was tasty, and attractive, having been shaped ina  ring mold.

The bistec flatbread sandwich can be made with filet mignon or grilled prawns.  We chose the prawns, and were happy with it.

Seviche is located on Penn Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh near Ninth Street.

Rating: 3.725 oranges