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Recipe: arepas with guasacaca

It has been snowing horizontally in my ‘hood for the past couple of days. I rather like the vertical snow more – you know, the kind that falls gently and accumulates so you can ski it? But I’ll take any snow we can get at the moment because we haven’t had our usual Big Dump Snow Day yet and it’s nearly November. Meanwhile, we’ve been taking care of business at home – like choosing who won the Doughnuts cookbook giveaway! Jeremy gathered Kaweah’s ragtag crew of toys, assigning each one a number and randomly distributing them in a line (that is, they are not laid out in numerical order). Then we recorded the number of the first toy she touched. We did this three times.

kaweah picked the number 557

Our number is 557. We had 274 qualifying entrants (I basically accepted entrants up until Kaweah had a number) and 557 MOD 274 is 9. Congratulations Emily Vigue! You’ve won a free copy of Lara Ferroni’s Doughnuts! I’ll send you an email to get your shipping address right away!

In case you’re wondering just how random my selection process is, my resident astrophysicist came up with the method and we had it verified for pure idiotic randomness by my friend and resident economist (also statistician), Erin. Not to mention – it’s Kaweah – does ANYONE know what goes on in that little brain of hers?

well, right now you know what kaweah is thinking

Erin and Ali came up yesterday so Erin could teach us to make arepas. Erin has been wanting to share arepas with us forever and ever. She learned how to make them the proper way in Venezuela. While I don’t particularly enjoy spending time in tropical climates, I am more than willing to partake of the cuisine. I’ve been wanting to try and blog about arepas ever since Erin mentioned them, so it all worked out. And if you see henna tattoos on the hands of our models, yes – they were at the party too!

start with harina pan

Erin told me there are two brands of harina that she is aware of and harina PAN is the one you want to use. You probably won’t find it in your neighborhood grocery store unless you are lucky enough to have a good Latin American market nearby (if so, color me jealous). So burn that image above into your brain because it is soooo worth it to make these delectable little pockets of savory amazingness.

pour the harina pan into a large bowl

add warm water

and some oil (and salt)

mix it together with your hand and let it rest

While you let the harina sit (Erin says ten minutes minimum, but the longer the better), you can make the guasacaca, a Venezuelan avocado salsa. Sounds like huasakaka – no hard G, okay? The ingredients are relatively easy to come by.

onion, jalapeño, parsley, cilantro, garlic, and avocado

blender it

You’ll also need a little salt, some white vinegar or rice wine vinegar, and oil (which you add last – always last). This might have come together easier had we used the food processor or if we hadn’t packed the leafy herbs in first. If you go the blender route and your blender sucks as much as mine does, then please blender the onion, vinegar, and avocado first. That will produce enough liquid to get the rest of the ingredients blendered properly, otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time pushing ingredients down toward the blade over and over and over again (with the blender OFF, of course).

erin finally gets the guasacaca to blend up

brilliant green color

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: mashed potatoes

***Don’t forget to enter to win a copy of Doughnuts by Lara Ferroni! You have until midnight (24 hours from time of this posting, yo!).***

The weather turned rainy, cold, and windy over the weekend. Occasionally, when the clouds lift, I spy snow in the distance. I’m anxious for the snow. To be honest, I’m anxious to finish out my travels this season and be in one place for more than a week or two at a time. I was reminded of that this past Friday when I attended a get together that was looong overdue. Our stitch-n-bitch crew has been so ridiculously busy that it’s the first time we assembled in one place in several months. (I’m totally one of the guilty parties.) It was a very special SNB and we didn’t even think to bring any knitting or crafts projects.

whenever manisha hosts, she makes exquisite food

and we devour it

After the initial feast, we all settled into Manisha’s living room where our hostess explained an Indian ritual for the expectant mother. In this case, we were celebrating our dear Nichole and her baby bump! We each took turns, administering tumeric, a red powder (I don’t recall what it was or if it was edible), and rice to Nichole’s forehead. We offered a coconut and a little nut in a cloth, sprinkled rice on her head, and fed her something sweet. I was running on fumes by Friday afternoon – the week had been insanely hectic – so I wasn’t able to catch the significance of each act while I was shooting. But it was fun as well as incredibly touching as the gals, one by one, offered their heartfelt blessings to Nichole and her baby.

manisha explains the coconut to all of the noobs

erin places tumeric on nichole’s forehead

ali sprinkles rice

she glows

But the party didn’t end there. No no, it was just getting started! Manisha hired two of her girlfriends to come and do henna tattoos. There was a lot of gossiping and bonding and laughing and snacking and admiring of one another’s tattoos as we migrated from the guest room floor (where we were getting tattooed) to the living room to the kitchen and back again. It was a beautiful time and the smell of eucalyptus oil permeated the guest room. Despite my exhaustion as the evening wore on, I felt that I was in a good place. I was with beloved friends celebrating a soon-to-be significant moment in Nichole’s life. We watched smiling, joking, giggling, admiring as Nichole’s belly tattoo blossomed into a work of art. She was beaming.

it started in the center

so lovely

erin’s cool design

end of the night: all in (missing 3 of our gals who had to leave early)

This was my first tattoo if you don’t count the four blue dots I have on my chest from my radiation treatments. This one is far prettier and definitely more special. It isn’t permanent, but I think I’d like it to last as long as possible – maybe 2-3 weeks depending on how well I take care of it. At first I would see my hand out of the corner of my eye and it would startle me, but I’m getting used to it. So don’t be startled if you see a tattooed hand in some of the recipes in the coming months!

my favorite potato in the world: yukon golds

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: meatball sandwich

On our quick 2-day trip in California’s glorious wine country, our first stop was Jordan Vineyard and Winery just over a mile north of Healdsburg off of beautiful Alexander Valley Road. I had met Jordan’s director of communications, Lisa Mattson, at IFBC in Seattle this past summer. Lisa was spunky and hilarious company during dinner. When she gave me her card, I only registered that Jordan was in California.

the lovely grounds at jordan winery

old oaks grace the patio

A couple of weeks before I left for BlogHer Food, I tweeted that we’d be spending a few days near Healdsburg after the conference. Lisa tweeted back that I should visit Jordan – perhaps attend their Harvest Lunch. The dates and locations all matched up, except that Lisa was going to be away on travel the day we arrived. But she made sure we were in good hands. Laura greeted us and walked our group through the stunning grounds to the incredible Harvest Lunch spread that their resident chef created. It was like being transported back to summer (California does that to you).

our table for harvest lunch

What I noticed and loved about Jordan was how all of their employees came in from the fields, the buildings, and gathered at the tables across the lawn to share lunch. Every day, Jordan’s chef prepares lunch for everyone at the winery to eat. There was a nice family feel to it. Laura told me she was excited about the mac and cheese (it was deliciously fancy mac and cheese) they were serving at lunch, but I was completely enamored with the vegetables – most of them straight from the garden, bursting with flavors of summer. Our lunch was served with Jordan’s crisp and bright Chardonnay. The winery is known for two types of wines: Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Chardonnay grapes are harvested from the Russian River Valley, but the Cab grapes are harvested in Alexander Valley.

tomatoes picked from their gardens that morning – still warm from the sun!

just a fraction of the beautiful dishes on offer

jordan chardonnay on ice

During lunch, we learned that Jordan was founded in 1972 by the Jordans – two petrologists who moved from Colorado to California. Petrologists are a flavor of geologist and so I was delighted to hear that the winery recently began incorporating soil mapping into how they grow their grapes. The property itself spans over 1,500 acres of rolling hills adorned with majestic California oaks and 75% of that is left natural and wild. As Laura led us down to see the chef’s garden after lunch, she explained Jordan’s commitment to sustainability and ecological balance of their land. The business is certified carbon-neutral and they implement several policies to minimize their impact on the environment. The garden was an enormous plot with tomatillos, all manner of herbs, precious heirloom tomatoes, several varieties of peppers, strawberries, figs, beans, onions, corn.

strawberries down at the chef’s garden

Because it was the harvest, we could see large stainless steel containers being loaded with hand-picked grapes and then transported up to the winery. We watched the operations as each container was tipped and emptied of its contents. The grapes fell into the hopper and then moved via conveyor belt past inspectors who removed debris and lesser-quality grapes before speeding into the building to be processed further. Meanwhile, the stems and leaves that were separated were trucked out to their compost (I love that!). The sheer volume was mind-blowing.

petit verdot grapes pouring into the hopper to remove stems and leaves

sooooo many grapes!

picking out burned grapes and other plant matter

On the way back to the reception area, I couldn’t help but admire the architecture and all of the trees and plants growing in courtyards and on the structures. Grand walls were blanketed in ivy which helps to keep the buildings cool from that hot hot sun. It’s the kind of place – with all those idyllic little nooks in the shade – that makes you want to grab a book, some cheese and bread, a glass of wine and go sit down and forget about everything else. Our sincerest thanks to Lisa and Laura for such a special visit at Jordan Vineyard and Winery.

persimmons ripening

a quiet courtyard with a statue of bacchus, roman god of wine

Full disclosure: Our group of four received complimentary harvest lunches and tours from Jordan Winery with no obligations.

It’s a small world, you know. When I was photographing lunch at Jordan, Laura asked me if I knew Matt Armendariz because he had been there not too long ago for a photo shoot. Are you kidding me? I love that guy! I just hugged his adorable self at BlogHer Food not five days ago… Food connects everyone in some form or another, but food and the interwebs bind us all like The One Ring. Not long before I flew to San Francisco, Jeremy informed me that the first year graduate students in his department gathered and took turns cooking for each other every weekend. He told me that the coming weekend they were going to make my recipe for Italian meatballs. Somehow, someone found my blog. I asked Jeremy if he thought it was weird to have these separate worlds colliding. He shrugged. I don’t think it phases him anymore. Okay, but where was I going with all of this? Those meatballs are not *my* recipe, they are Lorna’s recipe and when I saw her at the Queen Anne farmers market last month, I promised her I had another post on those meatballs coming.

i made meatball sandwiches

I must confess that I have always had a problem with meatball sandwiches. I began to discuss this with Jeremy because I had never had one before and he asked me why not. I’ll tell you why not. Because meatballs are spherical and they don’t stack nicely between two planar surfaces, that’s why not. Who the hell thought up such horrendous design mechanics of a sandwich? Also, they are discreet spheres rather than a continuous filling in the sandwich space. Ultimately, you know what this means, don’t you?

*inherent structural instability*

**Jump for more butter**