Solar System Voyage between the Smithsonians

In 2006 T & I got to follow my husband for a visit to Maryland, and took a day to go see a few sights in DC.  At that point he was 3, and learning the planets in preschool.  As we walked past the Smithsonian Castle on the way to the Air & Space Museum we found the "Voyage."

T at the start of the Voyage in 2013

Why am I sharing this with you?  3 Reasons.

1. It is a REALLY cool thing to do while eating ice cream, or just taking a break from so much inside-y-ness, and a fun way to get from one Smithsonian to another.

2. It was so much fun looking at these photos side by side. (Loopily self indulgent)

3. I couldn't remember exactly where it ran between, and I couldn't find anything online that pinpointed it's location.  So I am doing that.

The Pluto (dwarf planet) end is here:

Right by the Mall side (Jefferson Ave.) entrance of the
Smithsonian Castle

The What?

The Original Smithsonian

The one across from the National Gallery

And the Sun end is at the West end of the National Air & Space Museum.  

So, here's 2006 vs. 2013 at Pluto:

At Neptune:

Uranus was much more successful this time.  In 2006 it was in the center of a construction zone. So this is the best picture we were able to get of it.

See there it is, WAY in the back.
Wait, let me zoom in on that a bit...

 See? Much better.  And 2013 of course.

On to Saturn:

And Jupiter.  For scale - this is a 1:1/10,000,000,000 scale model (1 ten billionth) making the walk about 600m (0.4 mi), and this means Jupiter is about the size of the end of T's nose.

See the white dot in the center of
the black oval plaque?
That's scale Jupiter.  So most of the
planets are pin-dot size or smaller.

A quick stop at the Asteroid Belt:

And on to the Rocky Planets -
Mars:

Mars is SO cool these days

Home Sweet Home:

Venus - the green house disaster.  Yah know, people say that Venus is DOOMED to be this hot gas enshrouded rock forever.  But doesn't that make it the perfect test platform for de-greenhouseing?  Close by, already a mess, and big enough to (obviously) hang on to an atmosphere, however noxious to us feeble humans.

Mercury - the moon's twin.  Trivia: Mercury is further away from the sun than we are from Mercury. 

And the Sun!  I'll leave you with another Air & Space museum stat:

If you lined up all the planets size by side (you can even count Pluto if you want), 4 sets would line up across the sun, leaving enough room for an extra Saturn, 4 Earths and 1 Mercury.

And so I will end with 2 other pieces of silliness.

1.  Quick conversation re: DC scenery

Me: So when we get home, what are you tell dad you saw?

T: Busses.  Lots of busses.

2. Kids these days.

No... That's not a touch screen.
(National Air & Space Museum 2013)

Food Spoils from Costa Rica

Costa Rican Breakfast

I am the first to admit of a certain amount of food ignorance when it comes to our neighbors to the south.  I know of the meats on swords from Argentina, the Tex-Mex variant of Mexican food (beans, rice, tortillas and chips, pico de gallo & cheddar cheese everywhere), tostones (best use of green plantains), molé (chocolate for dinner?) and queso fresco and horchata.   But when it comes to local specialties and deep knowledge.  I can say the words on the menu, but I mostly don't know what I'm talking about.

I was lucky enough to get to go to Costa Rica for 5 days.  It wasn't the trip I would have chosen, but notice me not refusing.  Hey... it's 45˚F at home and 92˚F there.  Bathing suit, ponytail holder, sunglasses, sandals and a dress.

And sunscreen.  I'll be using Nordic 70.  Thanks.  Otherwise I'll look like a monkey's butt, and feel like one of those burned fields I passed.

Anyway, we had a tour guide on our drive from the airport to the resort where we were staying.  After he introduced us to "Pura Vida," gave us a run down on the local landscape, that fact that littering with bottles is a fire hazard in CR (the magnifying glass effect - dang!), coati descriptions (raccoon + monkey) and some monkey sounds, he asked us if we had any questions.

"Tell me about the food."

So he did.  The big points:
1. Not so much fans of the spicy.  A small consumption of chiles.  I never found ANYthing that was "too hot."
2. Corn is not the grain of choice - rice wins.
3. The starch of choice is plantain, green or ripe.
4. The national liquor is Cacique Guaro, fermented sugar cane - but it isn't rum.  (my favorite way is in a Caipirinha)
5. Eat more fruit, and if you don't feel like eating it, drink it.  ¡Agua Fresca!
6. Chicken, Pork, Beef or Seafood - with rice & beans, or beans & rice.  And plantains.  And a soft white cheese.
7. Picadillo - A mixture of diced vegetables and meats.   Eaten as a relish and with rice. Try lots of different sorts.  Most are good.  Some are great.  Always herbs, often tomatoes, sometimes vinegar.

So as far as I can tell, if there is a Global Meal, that the whole world can sit down over, it is going to be Chicken Rice.

I sorted out the "everyday" diet of the "average" Costa Rican (I'm using quotes based on my own acceptance that some MAJOR streamlining had taken place for my gringo oídos.)  But is was still plenty of new information, and I found most of what he told me about.  Interestingly much of the best was at breakfast.  But that may have had more to do with the fact that breakfast was a buffet.

And the dishes worth pursuing turned out to be:

Platános Maduros en Tortillas con Natilla
"Plantain Tortillas with Sour Cream"
-note the sour cream is more like Mexican "crema" than American sour cream, has a cheesier flavor, and kept at air temp for longer.  Air temp can be closer to 85˚F.

Gallo Pinto
"Spotted Rooster"
Breakfast of Everyone.  Rice sauteed with overnight cooked beans, onion, sweet pepper and cilantro.

eat this with

Salsa Lizano
(known as "lizard sauce" to some of the more suspicious).
A greenish sauce of concentrated vegetable mystery with a definite sour savory flavor.  Sort of the Worcestershire Sauce of Costa Rica, but with a sour, mild chile kick and good on everything but ice cream.

Plátanos Maduros Fritos con Queso
"Fried Sweet Plantains with Cheese"

Sweet plantains are fried, split down the center, so they look a bit like a canoe, and filled with shredded cheese.  This is a mild white cheese, and the assembly is baked until the cheese melts into mozzarella like gooey-ness.


I also found a recipe for the same thing baked where the plantains are brushed with oil and baked instead of deep fried.  That makes more sense to me since you have to bake the darn things anyway.  And cleaning up after deep frying... bleh!

And the easiest one.  The food (well, drink) that has me smacking my forehead in sheer DUH!

Aqua Fresca

"Fresh Water" literally.  But really a refreshing drink for all seasons.

We go al multi-fruit smoothie in this country.  There's a need to add a little of this and a little of that.  How about, just whirring up some fruit that's almost too ripe to eat, add just a little water, maybe a little lemon or lime juice, and enjoying?

A few recipes are coming...

So You Know That Book I Keep Talking About?

That's my book!

It is beginning to have a physical existence.  This book actually has pictures that have been taken (well LOTS of pictures.  That's what I did last summer.  Cook food while pictures got taken.)  But now the text and photos have been laid out on pages.  And I have some!

OK, they will be bound into a book.
But actual pages!

But I have a Facebook Page for it.  And will soon have a website for it (guess what I'm doing this weekend...)

There will be a few recipes - a link to find local Farmer Markets and CSA in your area, and of course - a way to buy my book.  (Duh!)

And even if you are never ever gonna cook - check out these amazing photos!  I wish I knew how my amazing photographer Vee Sawyer created such beautiful art out of MY food, that I made.
I'm still somewhat stunned.

(Phew!  Now just 700 more hours of editing...)

New Flavor Day - Za'atar

... or zahtar.  That's the problem with transliteration.  No one can agree on the spelling.

What is it?

For our purposes* - it is a spice mixture popular particularly in Middle Eastern countries - especially the ones facing the Mediterranean.  It's also a name for a shrub - and attaches itself to other things, but here I'm talking about the spice - and specifically RED za'atar - the kind with sumac berries!†


Partly due to laziness and other partly due to  buzy-ness, I just hadn't gotten my hands on any.  I've been hearing about sumac - it's mysterious citrusy sourness, and the tongue tingling taste that is the herb mix za'atar for years.  Well finally it is MINE!

And it was about time.
Often eaten as a condiment to flatbread - I opened up my fridge, did a little taste testing and went savory sweet.


Fastest Way to Enjoy Za'atar

Toast a tortilla (my fridge had corn) or other flatbread,
Add butter - and get it melty.
Sprinkle on a little salt, a little sugar, and lots of za'atar.
It will disappear.




* Just a little looking around shows me that the word "za'atar" is a little like the word "curry."  It means many things to many people, is location specific, and has muddy boundaries.  There is one version that will be known "world wide," and that will change over time.  But in the meantime, this version is pretty awesome.  It's now available all over the place online, and in almost anyplace that sells loose spices (like the bulk section of my favorite grocery store), and I'm guessing soon to be found in the spice aisle in bottles.  And easy to find in your local middle eastern grocery.  If one of those is easy to find.

† If you are anything like me, you may have been told of "poison sumac," a plant that gives you the same type of rash as poison ivy/oak.  This is an entirely different genus of plant - and completely unrelated.  All the same I was suspicious there a bit of this "sumac" stuff.  Silly me.

Haenam Kalbi & Calamari

Quick Review!  Try somewhere new.

I've been meaning to get my teeth into some of the Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican and Centro-American Restaurants lining Highway 99 near my house.  A sort of penance for complaining that there aren't many restaurants in North Seattle.  Yeah - I've learned my lesson after the whole Ramen thing.
And I'll confess, what kind of penance is it if you have to go try food?  Clearly one I made up for myself.

So I was invited to go eat at Haenam Kalbi & Calamari (15001 Aurora N Shoreline 98133).

To start - they have roasted barley tea.  This is a lovely lightly sweet and pleasantly bitter drink.  Next time I'll have to see if they have Korean Ginger Tea.  That is one of my favorite Gingery treats.

The menu has good pictures and descriptions - so don't be nervous, just go in and try.  But what to try? 

First time, go with Stone Bowl Bi-bim-bop.  Hot bowl, rice, a variety of meats (tofu available), veggies and an egg.  The stone bowl makes the rice at the bottom crispy and good.  There is a galaxy of side dishes to accompany.  Kimchee (the spicy pickle) along with other fermented veg, dressed veg and some salads.

I tried Hwe dubbap - Basically Korean sashimi, but served over fresh greens, and then you put a bowl of hot rice over it, and eat it with a fantastic hot and sour sauce.  Num!

And if there's no other reason to go?  The have a really cute sign - a little piggy and a squid.
(Yes I shoulda' taken pictures.  I'll do better next time!)

P.S. The Yelp reviews tell you about more of the dishes if you are curious.  A solid 4 star place.

Adobo Lab – Part III: Results

Basic Chicken Adobo

(Please quibble with the recipe and make changes.  I’m begging you.)

Equipment:

glass bowl or tupperware for marinating

sauce pan or casserole

baking pan/sheet for broiling (line with foil/Silpat to avoid scrubbing)

tongs/fork/chopsticks for moving hot food around

stirring things

chopping stuff if you need to cut up meat

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken wings, legs & thighs

1C – 1.5C vinegar (rice or cane or ???)

¼ - ½ C soy sauce (or 1 - 1.5 Tbs salt)

3 bay leaves

1 Tbs whole peppercorns

12 garlic cloves

optional:

(1 or 2 crushed/torn dried peppers – med or hot)

( ½C – 1C coconut milk)

Prep: (super-duper easy)

If you are working with a whole chicken, or quarters, cut the bird at the joints.  (Freeze the breasts for something else – or use them tonight if you are marinating for tomorrow.)

Hit the garlic cloves once with a pot, or that “tenderizing hammer” you got with a kitchen set at some point.  Remove the papery skin.

Into the marinating vessel, add the vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves, peppercorns, smacked and partially crushed garlic cloves (and any optional ingredients).  Stir to combine. 

Snuggle the chicken pieces into the liquid. 

Cover, place in the fridge and marinate for an hour or up to overnight.

(You can peel some potatoes or yams to add in chunks when you start the cooking if you’d like.)

Cook! (if possible even easier)†

Pour all the ingredients into your saucepan/casserole (including optional tubers).  Get the chicken down into the liquid.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes.  At about 15 minutes, turn over or re-snuggle the chicken in the sauce.

(Another optional: In the last 5 min of cooking, add a hard boiled egg or two).

Remove all the big chunks. 

Use your stirring spoon to smash up a few pieces of the softened garlic into the sauce.  Turn up the heat to reduce the sauce to coat-the-back-of-a-spoon thickness.  At the same time…

Place the chicken pieces under the broiler to crisp any skin (about 4 min for each side of wings and legs, and about 5 just on the skin side of the thighs.)

Return everything to the thickened sauce.

Serve over rice or with stir-fried and/or grilled veg (bok-choi or cabbage – always a good idea).

Refrigerate any leftovers for easy food the next day.  Or freeze for much later.  (This is the kind of thing that loves to be doubled – cook 1x, eat 2x)

† I've looked over a bunch of crockpot recipes.  Can't vouch, but the consensus seems to be:

Use 2 or so onions sliced into rings to create a platform for the chicken.

No need to marinate - as Madge the Manicurist used to say, "You're soaking in it."

Use the same recipe, maybe add a little water to make sure everything is snuggled into the liquid.

Cook at Hi for 3-ish hours

Cook at Low for 6-ish hours

Skin on and bone in are essential for this version.

The broil-flip-broil is nice, but not essential.

Attention Paleo-Peeps!  (And other people who are avoiding extra sugar)

No sugar is needed as long you have bones and skin to add richness to the sauce.  The large amounts of sugar in many of these crock-pot recipes is needed to give body and as a thickener when gelatin and fat are absent.

Adobo Lab - Part II: Experiments

Not a complete set - just a baseline.

Not being Heston Blumenthal or Alton Brown, much less Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, there's just no way I can explore all the ins and outs of Adobo like they would, or whatever they are pursuing.  They do that for a living.  I do it to relax.  And their graphics staffs are clearly more awesome than mine (me).

Your basic chicken wing adobo.
YUM!

That being said - I've put a bit of study into the Adobo thing (books, internet, and a lucky connection to a real live Adobo cook.  Even luckier - who was willing to share.)  And now it was time to try.

This particular project got started with a whole mess o' extra chicken wings.  See, last time we ordered wings from our butcher, they came pre-split.  So we got half as many as we thought.  This year, expecting that, we ordered accordingly.  And got unsplit wings, so had twice as many.  Next year - we're ordering by the pound.  3rd time, and all that.

4 vessels for experimentation

I decided to attack a few of the main elements: 

Vinegar type - cane or rice - and lots or less?

Salt source - soy sauce or regular salt

Marinate - 1-3 hours or overnight

Coconut milk - yes or no

Spicy or not?

Notice - I didn't even get into the sugar thing.

Lots of garlic.  I don't understand skimping on garlic.
Especially when it gets cooked to mellow and sweet.

Each had about 1.25 lb (0.55kg) of chicken wings  (sorry no pork - but this was more of a sauce challenge)

The basic recipe I started with was
Batch A:
Marinate the chicken for 2 hours in
1/4 C rice vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
1 tsp whole pepper corns
4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled
and I wanted to make this one of my spicy ones, so I also threw in
2 small crushed del arbol chiles (sort of seranno hot, not Thai birdseye hot.)

Pour this all into a cooking vessel of your choice.  Add a little water so you can snuggle you meat mostly into the liquid.

Bring to a boil.

Return to a simmer for 30 min, flip the wings half way through to make sure they get plenty of sauce time.

At the end, I put the chicken wings under the broiler for about 4 min on each side to crisp up the skin, while I boiled the sauce to reduce it down to a back-of-a-spoon-coating thickness.  You can smash up some of the softened garlic cloves into the sauce.

Dueling Sauces
first round
Cocoanut Milk or Not

Return the chicken wings to the thickened sauce to coat them.

Almost there -
Just one more step!

And then bat away the grabby fingers as you try to get a picture.  Or just give up, go with the flow and eat.

Verdict:

Yeah.  Uh, I have spent MUCH longer cooking food that was nowhere near as good.  And this was great.  Getting the family to taste test this, and the next three versions was really easy.  The crushed chile only added a pleasant background of spiciness.  If you want “hot, spicy” Adobo, you’ll need to add a whole bunch more chile pepper.  This was a nice subtle amount.

To get a little more baseline data, I did another 2hr marinade with coconut milk -
Batch B:
Marinate the chicken for 2 hours in
1/3 C cane vinegar
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 bay leaf
1 tsp whole pepper corns
4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled

Follow the same cooking instructions as above

And following one version of coconut milk lore, in the last 10 minutes of simmering I added 
about 1/3 C coconut milk (I eyeballed)

Then I did the broil-flip-broil while I reduced the sauce.

Verdict:

I liked this one better because I LOVE cocoanut milk.  The rest of family could have done without the coconut milk (quote, "Didn't ruin it, I just like it plain better.") but all liked the MORE vinegar version.

So onto the overnight marinades.

Batch C:

Marinate the chicken overnight in
1/3 C cane vinegar
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 bay leaf
1 tsp whole pepper corns
4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled

Follow the same cooking instructions as above,
and the broil-flip-broil while I reduced the sauce.

Verdict:

The soy flavor really came through in the overnight marinade, maybe a bit too much.  But the vinegary bite and all the rest of the flavors were amazing.  I can see why this has been captured by enterprising crock-pot cookers.  (To crock-pot adobo recipes, just pop them in for about 6 hours on low - maybe with a little extra liquid to cover everything).  There were no leftovers.  I wish there had been.  So I could have some more.

And this one... I warn you.  I went all crazy and unorthodox, the way I do sometimes.  (Green Curry Crab Chowder, Savory Aebleskivers, Canning jars in a sous vide - OK, that one's becoming normal)

I used some the "suggested additions" to adobo.  The ones where you might end up hearing, "Well that's really not adobo anymore."

I like to live dangerously.  Or eat well.  Or something.

Batch D:

Marinate the chicken overnight in

1/3 C rice vinegar

1 Tbs soy sauce

1 tsp fish sauce

1 bay leaf

1 tsp whole pepper corns

4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled 

1 whole anise “star”

1 crushed medium hot pepper (red-jalapeño hotness)

1/3 C coconut milk

Follow the same cooking instructions as above,

and the broil-flip-broil while I reduced the sauce.

Verdict:

Well, maybe they’re right, the not-quite-Adobo people.  It was more Thai curry-ish. 

Good Thai curry – the kind with the sour bite of tamarind and deep, complex, enviably mysterious flavors, and lusciously creamy. 

That overnight soak in all those spices created something more than what went in.  And for the life of me I could barely taste any heat.  I think the chile-ness simple added to the magic.   It was very good, but not Adobo.

What have I learned?

1) Cook Adobo again and more. 

2) Even my household is already subject to division on the coconut-milk-or-not front.  That didn’t take long.

3) Which vinegar is not as important as how much.  A bit more is better than less, just like with the other spices.

4) Marinate overnight if you have time, but still make Adobo even if you don’t. 

5) Use a little more soy sauce for a short marinade, less, or just salt for overnight.

6) I have no input on the sugar debate, except to say I didn’t miss it.

7) A little dried chile is nice.  And it won’t make things hot – just more interesting. (The vinegar does that.)

8) Use meat with some fat on/in it (chicken thighs, legs and wings, pork, stew beef? or stew lamb?) and never ever “boneless skinless chicken breasts.”  I know enough to know that those cooked in this heedless, low maintenance way would be awful.  (Can you imagine putting BSCB’s under a broiler for 4 min on a side after they were already cooked?!!  (choke, cough, so dry)

Check Out Adobo Lab – Part III: Results  for a nice starter recipe.

and in a bit (but not yet)-

Adobo Lab - Part IV: Hacking the Conclusions  for Adobo-Style Crispy Chicken Wings.
(yes, we have lots of frozen wings - yay! food saver vacuum bags.)