a recipe! featuring bulgur wheat!

my post the other day omitted one strong key player in the grocery game: the independent grocer. many of the towns i've been to in california have at least one local market or co-op with an impressive selection of fresh local produce and a large variety of dry goods, usually sold by weight. not to mention natural cleaning products and the ubiquitous dr. brommer's.

on a recent sunny day in guerneville, i happened upon one of these such stores, decided to experiment a bit and ended up making a delicious, healthy meal with an ingredient i'd never used and barely tasted before: bulgur wheat.

i was craving brown rice and lentils for some reason, but that takes long and i was running out of propane. i scanned the dry goods and settled on pink lentils, which are tiny and thin, so they cook fast. i chose bulgur wheat because it reminded me of brown rice, but in tiny pieces. turns out it's way more nutricious and cooks way faster. i ended up just putting it on top of the vegetables with a cover for the last few minutes of cooking and kind of steaming it over the veg, then stirring the whole thing together at the end. i would have more pics but i wasnt planning on sharing this--until i realized how simple and nutritious this recipe is and decided i should pass it on..

rinse lentils. cook up some diced vegetables (i used carrots, onion, garlic, celery and red pepper, because thats what i had) in some oil (i used half sesame/half olive oil) with some spices (i put cumin, chili, pepper, crushed cloves and a bunch of tamari) and add lentils. cook for a while, stirring occasionally. i know, im being super specific about all of this haha. anyway, when it seems almost cooked, add the bulgur wheat. as mentioned, i just steamed it on top, but you can mix it up when you like! add tamari to taste and Voila!




yes i cooked on the floor. i needed a hot meal!





the picture doesnt do it justice, but yes, this is brunch in guerneville :)

dinner in a motel room

sometimes, when travelling and living out of a van, one can't help but seek the comforts of home. it's nice to enjoy your own shower, room and shitty tv for $35. sometimes (ok always) i even take it so far as to make dinner. the farmer's market in sebastopol was today, so i got a room and cooked up some fresh-picked basil, killer tomatoes and globular cali zuchini. then i tossed in this amazing fresh goat cheese i got from a farmer who was from the south of france, but seemed more spanish somehow. he takes woofers and invited me to come to his farm anytime, which i'm strongly considering. so yeah, veggies, basil chopped up super fine and that goat cheese and i have the best pasta in life. or at least weeks. on the side: fresh sprouts, greens and flowers with lemon cucumber(!), avocado and more of the killer tomato (must find out name). goddamn. thanks, norcal farmers!

 

 

a good meal is hard to find.

i'm in sonoma county, nestled in the redwoods in between the pacific ocean and miles and miles of orchards, vineyards, groves and crops, home to the people after whom the term hippie was created and many, many "yippies", which is another post entirely. point is, there should be good food and there should be good food in abundance. instead, i'm surrounded by the same shitty safeways, lucky's, and this new grocery store i've encountered that can only be described as the k-mart of whole foods. plus, of course whole foods, which is great but you need to donate a kidney per week to afford the food there. here's a little breakdown for those who are USA-brand challenged:

safeway: the ubiquitous mega-grocery store; features a deli, ready-made food, aisles of packaged foods, and every thing else you'd expect in a supermarket. everything's OK, but it's also completely transgenic and probably causes six different types of cancer. you eat cheap but you feel cheap after.

lucky's: same as above, but with less prepared food and more cancer.

whole foods: i remember falling in love with whole foods at the tender age of 9 in washington, DC. my aunt told me to grab whatever i wanted because i was staying the week.i still fantasize about that afternoon. anyway, whole foods lives up to its name: it features organic, local, healthy food, and an abundance of prepared foods, hot and cold. problem? yes, you have to be growing a lot of green to be able to shop there.

trader joe's: same as whole foods, but not quite as local or sustainable. mildly cheaper, but you feel the difference.

fresh and easy: this is my favorite, not as a grocery store, but as a genius concept. it seems healthy: hummus, vegetables, salads, grains; but there's no mention of the word organic anywhere, and everything is packaged. it's mass-produced, transgenic health food. pure genius. i shopped there once and i'm pretty sure it took a few days off my life. i couldn't help it. everything goes on sale at 7pm the day it expires, so that tomato-mozzerela-pesto salad that wasn't quite worth it at $2.99 is all of a sudden seventy cents. take it from me and save your seventy cents.

to me, this is all another push against the idea of one-stop shopping. it's convenient, but at what cost? i feel like the only affordable way to eat without developing diabetes is to buy food at the source, and it's a pity places like safeway have wiped that idea out. imagine shopping at markets like in mexico, where the farmers sell their home-grown, fresh-picked produce, the fishermen spend the afternoon hawking their catch of the day, and the grains are sold in huge barrels, free of any processing or branding. the resulting meal is otherworldly, both in taste and in the way you feel after eating it.

anyway, here's breakfast this morning: fresh-baked whole grain purple wheat bread, local 5-pepper goat cheese and some coconut milk fresh out of the shell. plus, some steamy reading!!




breakfast in the redwoods

breakfast in puerto escondido

ok time for another breakfast post. the second breakfast photo took place in oaxaca, in puerto escondido, playa zicatela to be exact- the #2 surfing destination in the world, after somewhere in bali i presume. the waves at playa zicatela were 20-30 feet high, depending on time of day. around 5pm, all the extreme surfers would go out and try not to kill themselves. it was intense. needless to say, i chilled at playa carrizalillo nearby, which was a beautiful calm cove of heaven.



playa carrizalillo

we spent a week in puerto escondido, paying like 10% of the price of a room with outdoor kitchen and beautiful views. many breakfasts were made. 

outdoor kitchen

prep

my favorite was this one, which i had later in chiapas a million times better. bean and cheese tostadas with garnishes and typical mexican soup with corn, sweet poato, onion, cilantro etc. and of course, the ubiquitous fresh fruit. 

breakfast in puerto escondido

chapulinos!

hi guys! it's been a while but i had a crazy summer and montreal, and you don't need to hear about all that boring stuff ;)
it's almost fall, which means the cold is coming and it's time to get moving!
leaving to brooklyn and manhattan for the weekend, which means i'm gonna happily gain ten pounds of street food. which is fine, because the next stop will be the grand canyon, although travel plans always change so who knows really?
anyway, this post will be a throwback to last year's travels, with a mexico city post featuring chapulinos (crickets!!)

mexico city is magical. filled with vibrant colors, a plethora of cultures, breathtaking architecture from every epoque, individuality, politics, music, beautiful parks, i could go on forever... basically, it is a city that never sleeps and always dances.

i hadn't eaten any meat except chicken breast for over twnety years, so when we went to the local market and were faced with rows of different sized crickets, i wanted to run. but our guide for the day insisted that chapulinos taste like chips, and oddly enough they did. still, you can feel the legs dangling around as you bite into the torso, so it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. my travel partner, on the other hand, took full advantage. he loaded up a pork taco with a handful of those little buggers and went at it.

                                            tacos al pastor con chapulinos

mexico city/summer salad

bienvenue! i'm toya and i try to spend nine months of the year travelling around the world and tasting different foods. i have a degree in journalism and love meeting new people and eating fun things like chapulinos (crickets!) in mexico city or exotic fruits in vinales, cuba.

this blog is mostly about food, and in particular breakfast (which can be eaten at any time of day and could consist of anything, so really i mean 'food') in montreal (but i travel as much as i can and it could be havana or nelson or wherever else i might be, so really i mean 'anywhere'). the only reason i'm calling it breakfast in montreal is as an homage to my inspiration, which is the subject of my first blog post.

two things inspired this blog: a series of photographs and today's brunch.
the series of photographs was taken on a recent trip around america, where i cooked as much as possible and (when i could) captured my feats on camera. i would then share these photos on facebook, giving my family and friends an idea of where i was (and what i was eating:)

here's the first one i did (circa november 2011) :

breakfast in mexico city

(some local hard cheese, bread, tomato)

you can barely see the food, but the apartment is nice. it was in a really chill, artsy area called roma norte. excuse my inability to remember any food names, i'll try to search deep and come back and edit.

next we stayed in coyoacan, which is the historic center. it's in the middle of one of the most populous, polluted cities but some parts feel like you're in a small town. it was magical.

breakfast in mexico city part deux

(assorted super-exotic local fruits, dried cured ham, blue cheese, hard toast, freshly squeezed oj)

so those were the first couple, i'll do a post or two with the rest in the future. for now, the second part of my inspiration: today's brunch! i'm especially excited about this because it's late and i haven't eaten yet. the couscous is cooling in the freezer (you like my foreshadowing there eh!)

i came up with this yesterday at segal's cuz the feta and corn were cheap and i wanted to make some sort of cold summery salad. i remember at commensal they make a rice-feta-corn-tomato type one which is aight, but definitely beatable. also i had couscous at home and have never cooked couscous in my life, so that needed to be included. 

late last night i got bored and started. i roasted two zucchinis, a red pepper, some green onions, and some garlic, all cut lengthwise (except the garlic which i left in the peel). before roasting i put a bunch of olive oil and some balsamic and dijon over em and mixed it all up. at the same time, i steamed 3 corn husks. 

when that was all ready, i shaved the corn off the husks and chopped up the veggies and put it in the fridge to cool overnight. 

today i made the couscous, which is so incredibly easy; two parts water, one part couscous. bring water to boil, take off stove, add couscous. while the water was coming to a boil i opened and drained a can of chickpeas. i rinsed them super well and took the film off of them, which makes a big texture/taste difference. when the couscous was ready (it takes 5 mins) i put it in the freezer to cool, fluffing it with a fork once in a while. an hour or so later, i took it out and mixed it up with the roasted veggies, corn, chickpeas and 300 g of crumbled feta and added some olive oil. it is amazing. i'm trying to find my camera to take a photo, but for now just picture it. healthy, tasty loveliness.

vive-le-maroc summer salad