Alamos dos: Street food vs. ....

It's a lesson I've learned nearly every time I've traveled to foreign lands. And yet. With each new journey, I seem to lose the lesson, only to repeat the same mistake. I'm sure you've done the same.

Imagine the scene: After two days of driving, we arrive at our destination, a small town in northern Mexico. We pull the deerslayer -- our trusty but stinky minivan -- up to our friend John's humble casita. As soon as we drag our stiff bodies out of the car (followed by the wrappers from the only fast food place open in the Tucson region on Christmas Day), and into the distant clatter of ranchero music and John's dusty yard, which has been plagued by the neighbors' chickens, we are overpowered by the scent of guavas and limes and an undercurrent of smoke.

Something's always burning in Mexico.

Naturally, we eat street food. Carne asada, mostly, the kind you can get from a little nicho off the alameda from the young and unusually lithe woman with short hair died golden blonde almost orange and the big sunglasses. For five bucks we get a container of carne, a dozen tortillas, salsa, grilled onions, guacamole -- enough for four people.

What's not to like? But here's the age old dilemma: One day, we go to a small town in the hills. After a hike, our judgment impaired somewhat by sun, we stumble upon a restaurant that promises "gourmet international food." John says it's a five star establishment (judged by whom, I wonder, but don't ask). We look at the menu: twenty bucks a person, plus. Looks nice and quiet inside, with the promise of sophisticated conversation over wine. Just outside the restaurant, in the plaza, sits our alternative for dinner: A long, white table holding only several large jugs of red sauce with three bare lightbulbs strung overhead. Flames leap from a grill, black with many many uses. Two men cook something over the fire.

After a bit of back and forth and counting of pesos, we decide that the five star restaurant might be kinda nice. There is a logic to this decision that goes like this: If we can pay five bucks for a great meal on the street, then shouldn't a meal costing ten times as much be ten times better? It's based loosely on the axiom: You get what you pay for.

We sit down. We are immediately assaulted by the proprietor, who tells us how great his food is, how great his restaurant is, how everything is made by hand right there in that tiny little town. This is red flag number one (why's he blabbing to us instead of slaving away over masterpieces in the kitchen?). Still, the margarita is exquisite, the Chilean wine decent. Then the food comes: The garlic-saffron soup tastes suspiciously like french onion. The bread has a tight, bleached crumb (passable with a big coating of butter). The salad is fresh, but not remarkable. The chicken is chicken, no mas, no menos. Then dessert. The proprietor had promised that his chocolate gelato was "killer." So we ordered it. Or we thought we ordered it. Instead, we got vanilla ice cream (store bought, I'm sure), smothered with more talk from the proprietor, and then the bill, smothered with an obvious gringo tax that John and I paid just to get away from the guy's incessant, arrogant, blather. You get what you pay for.

What had we done? Our lesson learned, we've indulged in street food three times a day ever since. Lots of carne asada, sure, but also tacos pescado (frito), with crispy fresh salsa and cucumbers and onions and avocados and yellow sauce and pink sauce out of squeeze bottles and a Coca-cola from the old glass bottles. Bare light bulbs hanging overhead just a few feet from the cars cruising the alameda and the man with a blue cloudy eye looking out from the darkness of his pickup truck and the men in the white cowboy hats and the women glittering from their eyelids to the sparkly studs on their black jeans sticking to every curve and fold and the competing ranchero music and a little brown bag of churros crispy and still hot, their grease seeping into the bag, and Negra Modelo in a bag of ice and lime and chiltepin hot sauce so hot "I can feel it my chest" says Wendy and the bus station across the street lit up and cold and, next to the Tecate store, in a sunken empty lot, a canopy with candles burning and people sitting solemnly and silently oblivious the the carnival on the street paying their respects to the man or the woman or the child in the coffin under a shawl bathed in the orange light of the fake candles under the canopy in the empty lot next to the store where they sell Tecate and only Tecate, ice cold.

Alamos Uno

Sometimes, Christmas is about snuggling up in a cozy place while snow falls outside and eating and drinking and spending time with extended family. Sometimes, it's about driving to Mexico.

This year, we chose the latter. After two days of driving through mountains and snow and saguaros and deserts, we landed in Alamos, in the state of Sonora. It's one of the northernmost colonial towns of Mexico, and sits where the desert and tropics collide. And, like much of Mexico, a feast for the senses. As soon as we arrived, and climbed out of the deerslayer (our car), Wendy was overcome by the scent of guavas falling from the trees. It just got better from there.

More on that later. For now, just pictures of the first couple of days, including from the opening at John Sheedy's gallery. John is working on a documentary -- the Tijuana Project -- about the Tijuana dump and the children living there. He gave the kids some cameras, and they documented their neighborhood; the Alamos gallery opening included those photos.

Whoa, whoa, Mexico!

The entire gin + gelato team (that would be my family and me) are headed south. To Alamos, Sonora, Mexico, a colonial mining town in the mountains about 8 hours south of the border. And we're driving. We will search for gelato on the way (this looks like a good bet in Tucson). We'll forsake gin for tequila and cerveza. Perhaps there will be a gin + gelato post or two from the road.

It promises, already, to be a harrowing adventure. Simply getting from here to Durango (where our children await), requires traveling the treacherous San Juan Mountain roads through a huge storm. Then, on Christmas day, we'll cross the border near Nogales, a place that has become a hotbed of narcotraficante violence of late.

Everyone says it's fine, as long as you drive during the day. And besides, it can't be any more dangerous than flying, when airplanes at Denver's airport are skidding off the runway at 400 miles per hour. Yikes.

Vesper: The James Bond Martini

We all know, or think we know, that James Bond drinks dry vodka martinis: shaken, not stirred. (Who the hell stirs their martinis these days, anyway?) Then, in the most recent movie, Quantum of Solace, the layman is introduced to a new drink. While flying across the Atlantic on a private plane, Bond pounds six, yes six, martini-looking drinks. And in one of the most awkward moments of that movie, Bond can't even articulate what he's drinking, so he leaves it to the bartender to give us the recipe: 3 measures Gordon's gin, 1 measure vodka, and 1/2 measure Lillet Blanc.

Now, from what I understand, 1 measure equals 1.5 ounces, or one shot. In other words, Bond had drunk 27 shots of alcohol during the flight. Yowzers.

It is my duty as a gin blogger to try to recreate this cocktail, and try it out (although in much smaller quantities). So I did. Turns out that the original recipe for the cocktail comes from Ian Fleming's 1953 novel Casino Royale. In it, Bond goes into a bar and orders a "dry martini. One, in a deep champagne goblet." Then he reconsiders and says:

Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?'

Got it. Except no one makes Kina Lillet anymore, which was a wine based liquor with a heavy dose of quinine (the stuff that makes tonic water bitter). In the 1930s, the name was changed to Lillet Blanc, and in the 1980s, the quinine content was reduced. Today, Lillet Blanc is not easy to find, but I was able to order a bottle from Paonia's 133 Liquor; and I picked another bottle up at Corks in Montrose. It's a bit like vermouth, truth be told, but sweeter.

Then, I found a beautiful and seductive German spy (Wendy, my wife) to help me mix up and quaff a batch. We usually drink Bombay Sapphire, so we used that in the place of Gordon's. Absolut was the vodka. And Lillet Blanc. The big slice of lemon peel is crucial.

The verdict: Very nice. In spite of the orange hue to the Lillet Blanc, the resulting cocktail was clean and clear. So was the flavor -- the addition of a bit of vodka mellows the stronger gin flavors, which is not a bad thing. And by the last few sips, the lemon peel flavor has nicely infused itself into the alcohol.

Why such a big drink?

'Gosh that's certainly a drink,' said Leiter.

Bond laughed. 'When I'm ... er ... concentrating.' he explained, 'I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I can think of a good name.'

Later, he met the lovely Vesper, and thus, the name.

Sacrifice for the Sun

The snow was like sugar.

There were no sounds except of the skis sliding across the granular snow and the labored breathing of the three of us. Nancy broke trail, and with each powerful kick, a cloud of snow shot out behind her, glistening in the moonlight.

It was the winter solstice, and Mike had pulled me out of the warmth and comfort of my house, just as I was settling in for the evening to watch TV, to go on this ski. Mike was always doing things like that; he seemed to have an obsession with preventing me from getting comfortable.

"Come on, you've got to come. We have to make a sacrifice," he said. "If we don't, the sun will keep moving south and will never return."

"Why can't we do it in the daytime?" I inquired, knowing that my question was futile.

"Because it's the longest NIGHT of the year, not day. It's a time to celebrate the night," he proclaimed as he gathered up my ski gear. "Hurry up. Nancy's waiting in the car."

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT BURNING SUNFLOWER.

Chocolate Truffles (real ones)

The English language is constantly being perverted by modern culture, especially by the commerce side of things. And nowhere is that more true than in the realm of food. Witness, for example, Starbucks' corruption of Italian coffee names such as macchiatto; coffee snobs would say it's a shot of espresso "stained" (the literal meaning of macchiatto) with a tiny bit of hot or cold milk (and maybe some foam, though that's up for debate). Starbucks, meanwhile, has this sickly sweet and syrupy drink. Which could hardly be called coffee, let alone a macchiatto. It's not mere semantics, either: I've personally witnessed the mayhem that ensues when a Starbucks fan orders a macchiatto from a real barista.

Yeah, that's just evil corporations for you. But another name has been misused by the entire candy industry, even the aficionados: chocolate truffle. Go to a chocolate boutique and order a truffle and what are you likely to get? A nugget of chocolate ganache coated with a harder chocolate shell, perhaps drizzled with some sort of decorative fluorish to indicate the flavor within.

That's crazy, of course, because chocolate truffles were named after that tres cher fungi worshipped by foodies and known by the French as le truffe. And they don't have hard chocolate shells; rather, they look dusty and brown -- a bit unappetizing in fact. True chocolate truffles look the same, dusty and brown -- thanks to the cocoa dust coating -- and thus the name. The candy folks probably thought they looked a bit like turds, so they went for the snazzier chocolate shell, but kept the old name.

Problem is, the revised truffles just don't give the same experience. A real truffle should first assault the mouth with a dry and bitter cocoa dust, which gives way to creamy, deep chocolate ganache. The contrast delights the tongue, and the flavors move all the way through the mouth.

In an attempt to keep true chocolate truffles alive, gin + gelato made some last night for a Paonia rager. People at the party looked at them funny, but after they were assured that they were, indeed, edible, they ate them enthusiastically. The ecstatic looks on their faces said it all. Here's how to do it:

Ingredients:
1 cup bittersweet chocolate (I use Ghirardelli's 60 percent cocoa chips)
1 little square of unsweetened chocolate
7 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons of heavy cream
High quality cocoa powder

Put the first four ingredients in a saucepan and melt it all over hot water (if you can't come up with a double boiler setup, you can also heat the cream and butter and then add the chocolate, stirring constantly over very low heat).
Stir often -- the goal is to have a silky, shiny chocolate ganache without any chunks of melted chocolate.
Chill the chocolate in the refrigerator for an hour or so, until it's firm, but pliable enough to shape with your hands.
Cover a plate with cocoa powder, have another plate nearby on which you can put the finished truffles (it's a good idea to dust this plate with cocoa powder, too).
When the ganache is ready, scoop out a teaspoon at a time, mold each piece of ganache with clean hands into a little ball, and roll it in the cocoa powder.
Voila! Truffles.

Now, I must confess, gin + gelato did their own part to pervert the truffle name. They like to play around with different coatings, from curry powder, to chili powder, to crushed nuts, to saffron to beet powder, which makes for a beautiful bright red contrast to the dark chocolates.

Finished truffles can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a few days or more, but they should be eaten at room temperature.

Pears and Polaroids

It is the time of year when pears hang too ripe from the trees. And when memories of adolescence and lost love cling like spiderwebs.

All that separates us is a small wooden table, an empty green bottle, a Mason jar half full of red wine, and a pear.

From the silence that grows between two people who have said all they have to say to one another, I speak.

“What are you working on?”
“Oh,” she says, “not much.”
I wait
“You know I don’t talk about my work. Not before it’s done.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You don’t talk about much ‘til it’s done.”
Another pause.
“A pear,” she says.
“You’re painting a pear?”
“Yeah.”

To read the whole story, go to gin + gelato's new short fiction/essay blog: Burning Sunflowers.

World's (second) Greatest Smoothie Recipe

Now, you're probably wondering why this jerk is giving you the recipe for the SECOND best smoothie in the world, and not the first. So, just to make you feel better, I'll first give you the recipe for the BEST smoothie in the world:

Ingredients: 1 beach in Costa Rica; 2 mangoes, freshly picked from a nearby tree; 1 papaya, ditto; 1cup of homemade yogurt; a handful of ice; a blender; and a beautiful, scantily clothed person of the gender of your choice to deliver it to you on the beach, followed by a massage.

There.

Now, I've been making smoothies just about every morning for at least five years now (without a tropical beach, mango tree, and you wouldn't want to see me scantily clothed). And I've played around with recipes a lot. For a long time, all of my smoothies included frozen fruit -- berries, strawberries, mangoes, etc. But frozen fruit are expensive. So, recently, I started experimenting with banana-based smoothies. Here's what I came up with -- utter simplicity with a hint of the exotic.

Ingredients (makes enough for two)

2 ripe bananas (the miracle fruit)
1/2 ripe avocado (optional, but highly recommended)
1/2 cup yogurt (homemade is best, Brown Cow vanilla or plain are good, too. Add more if you want extra creamy).
1 cup orange or pineapple juice or similar blend
2 tablespoons flaxseed oil, flax meal or wheat germ (or a combination thereof)
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon curry powder (Yeah! Curry. I like it spicy).
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
handful of ice

Throw it all into a blender, and blend thoroughly (I've got a "smoothie" setting on my deluxe blender, which pulses the mix for a whole minute). For a thicker smoothie, add more banana or avocado. For a lighter one, add water or more juice.

My friend Amy, who is a practitioner of Ayurveda, likes the fact that I add curry and cardamom and ginger to my morning meal. You see, ginger gets the digestive fires going (along with a lot of other benefits), which is a good thing when you're all sleepy and stuff. The spicy stuff in curry gets the fires going, too. And turmeric (prime ingredient in curry powder) is good for everything from boosting immunity to increasing mental clarity.

Of course, Amy also recommends not mixing fruit and dairy, which this smoothie does (look for a later post -- after I interview Amy -- explaining why, and giving more details on Ayurveda). But I figure all those good spices, plus the great taste of this smoothie, offset whatever side effects there are.

Yummy.

NY Times tries Sorbet, and it stinks

Okay, maybe it doesn't stink. But it's also not really sorbet, says gin + gelato chief food critic, Quel Fromage.

Over at the New York Times, the "Minimalist" Mark Bittman yesterday ran a little recipe for really quick and easy sorbet, in which he just throws frozen fruit, sugar and water into a food processor, and whips it up, then calls it sorbet!? Now, here at gin + gelato, we're all about quick and easy. Still, to equate pureed frozen fruit with sorbet is just WRONG. What next? Throw a bunch of ketchup onto some pasta and call it marinara?

No, what Bittman has created is more like a slurpee or a slushee. Which is fine and good. Just call it that, not sorbet. And definitely don't call it gelato.

Speaking of: In the next week I plan on posting a recipe for the best sorbet ever. I'm just waiting for the part to fix our refrigerator, which went kaputz, quite suddenly, the other day. I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I went to the appliance blog (that's a blog that has a use, not just some vanity thing like gin + gelato) and came up with a diagnosis and ordered a part to fix it. If I don't get electrocuted, I'll let you know if it worked.

Barrel tastin' in the North Fork

Here's what's great about the place I live, known as the North Fork Valley in Western Colorado.

On a Saturday afternoon, I can head out into the 'dobes and shoot things amid rotting animal carcasses, garbage and a variety of abandoned appliances. An hour later, I can be in a setting that, to a foodie, rivals the south of France.

The 'dobes is an area of badland-like terrain, ubiquitous in this part of the state wherever irrigation doesn't reach, that is scruffy with scrub and dotted here and there with juniper trees and sage. There's one particular part of the 'dobes, not far from Paonia, that locals use as dumping ground, nightclub, shooting range and, apparently, a place to sacrifice both deer and Whirlpool washing machines. This Saturday, my daughter Lydia and I headed out there to practice archery with some friends. Scattered about were dozens of deer and elk bones, hides, and heads in various states of decay. It was tough to walk without stepping on a hair-covered skull, or a still meaty ribcage. And the ground -- grey brown by nature -- was instead green, red and metallic, thanks to a plethora of spent shotgun shells and Keystone Light cans. But it gave us plenty of things to shoot at, including an old air filter that we threw up into the air and tried, unsuccessfully, to take down in flight.

Within an hour after returning we were here:


The cave, or cellar, of Alfred Eames winery. Eames, who produces the most consistently delicious wine in the valley -- and perhaps the state of Colorado -- held his annual barrel tasting event this past weekend. On hand were Joe and Corrine Coniglio, of Roubideau Farms, with their very French raw goat milk cheeses. Eames gave us a taste of Merlot from the barrel (it had a very raw taste to it; unrefined; rustic; and for some reason reminded me of Jean Giono, the great French author. A lot about this area reminds me of Giono, who often writes about places in France where farming and nature collide -- in a nice way.


Plenty of other tasting -- from bottles, not barrels -- was to be had. The Pinot Noir is a favorite of mine, for no other reason than the grapes all are grown right here (it's too cold to easily grow Cabernet Sauvignon or Franc -- those grapes are imported from Palisade, over the Grand Mesa from here).


But that wasn't all: Delicious Orchards had its own open house tasting. I once referred to this place as a "fruit stand," which is partly true, but doesn't get near the reality. It's really a full-blown local grocery store, general market and wine bar (with gin and vodka, too!), located just outside Paonia. They even have an entire wing devoted to yarn and knitting.


I tasted a fair number of wines, but my favorites there were the Stone Cottage Cellars Syrah and the Bethlehem Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. Both have a lot of character to them.

Today, I didn't get to go dance around on deer carcasses. But I did get to enjoy the fruits of my tasting labors of the night before. I cooked up a flank steak (local) with mushrooms and arugula (local) -- really quick and easy recipe, if you want it, let me know. Some delicata squash (local). We accompanied it with Eames's Menage (which is a spicy, forward threesome in which Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot come together to create a whole much bigger than the parts) and had a Coniglione Tomme goat cheese for desert.

Lovely.

Introduction II: Gelato (flashback) In the City

Blogger's note: The following is based on something that happened over a year ago. The result? A lack of details and photos from the various gelato/ice cream establishments. Still, I hope it gives a general overview of the best gelato in Manhattan.


HOT HUMIDITY WRAPPED ITS SWEATY ARMS AROUND ALL OF MANHATTAN. Skyscrapers glistened under blue skies. Perfect, in other words, for ice cream. We were on the Upper West Side. Someone, or some Google search, sent us to a place with a slightly funny name. We quickly forgot the name, but remembered the approximate location. Which left us standing on a street corner, looking around in confusion.

That's when the stranger approached. Now, keep in mind, this is New York City, where strangers are supposed to mug confused looking yokels like ourselves. Or scream at them. Or throw them under the wheels of speeding taxis. Not this stranger.

"Can I help you find something," she asked Wendy. Such kindness seemed odd. It seemed especially odd coming from a major television/movie star. Yet there it was, Cynthia Nixon, a.k.a. Miranda from Sex in the City, offering Wendy directions on a busy street corner in Manhattan.

"We're looking for an ice cream place," Wendy replied.

"Oh, there's a great one down the street, Emack & Bolios," Nixon said.

"It's great to see you here," Wendy said.

Then Nixon winked at her. Then we went to get ice cream.

The Emack & Bolios experience turned out to be anticlimactic. It was ice cream, and it was good ice cream. It was not outrageously good ice cream. Nor was it Cynthia Nixon giving us directions ice cream. Give them credit for giving the world an alternative to Baskin Robbins three decades ago.

If you're in Manhattan and you want the real good stuff, check out the laboratory of ice cream, more formally known as il laboratorio del gelato. This mad food scientist's hideaway is down in Lower East Side, and isn't much to look at. But hotdamn that's some innovative, tasty stuff. Flavors range from toasted sesame, to orange bitters, to Guinness and Kahlua, to lime basil, to tarragon with pink pepper. They have ginger; no gin, as far as I can tell. Still.

Or, if you want something a bit more trendy, there's always GROM. When we went, there was a line out the door. It's always like that in summer, I'm told. It was a long time ago, and I can't even remember what flavors I got. But I remember this: It was excellent. I also remember this: I was a bit torn regarding the basic premise. See, GROM is based in Italy, and even has its own organic farm there for growing ingredients. Very nice. Problem is, they also make the mixes for the gelato way over in Italy, then ship them to New York before creaming them. Huh?? That seems a bit strange.

So, if I had to choose, I'd hit the lab.

Later, after we told Steve about the Cynthia Nixon encounter, he insisted that the actress was not just offering directions, but cruising Wendy. Wendy, not knowing this, was crestfallen at the lost opportunity.

Oh well, the gelato, later on, was pretty damned good.

Introduction: gin

It was our last night in the city. Rain had fallen for three days straight, and we were perpetually damp. We had spent our evenings combing the neighborhoods for that quintessentially urban experience. Perhaps a corner bar with exquisite cocktails, appetizers and understated elegance. Or maybe something truly bohemian -- pasty faced, scruffy poets throwing verse at one another.

We hadn't found it. Instead, we drank at an Irish pub, dined at an overpriced, crowded, trendy Italian joint. Not bad, but not transcendent, either.

Why Wendy was drawn to the Liberty Hotel, visible each day as the train rose up to cross the river, I don't know. It was detached from any neighborhood, and attached to a hospital. Its brownish grey facade seemed cold against the steel grey sky. But drawn to it we were. Which is a good thing. The lobby was the inside of a colonial-era jail, and it was truly grand. The bar, called Clink, offered sumptuous couches and an equally sumptuous bartender. We settled in.

A few hours later, we found ourselves in the kitchen of a corporate lawyer, cooking carne asada in various stages of undress and carnality.

Lips. Everywhere.

And it all started with gin. Hendricks, to be precise. Which is funny, because normally I'm a Bombay Sapphire guy (which causes gin afficianados' livers to pucker up and cringe -- the NY Times called it a "neurotic" gin. Pshaw.). The martini was called the Classic Twist, a delightfully cool concoction of Hendricks, muddled cucumber, black pepper and perhaps some vermouth, all shaken quite beautifully by the aforementioned bartender.

I sipped it, and spoke effusively about a talk I had heard that day about the importance of storytellers in every tribe, community, society. I almost cried, in fact -- maybe it was the words, maybe the martini. Wendy gulped French Kisses -- vodka, chambord, champagne. She delighted in asking the waitress, quite seductively, for another french kiss.

I was about to order a second twist. After all, they say a martini is like a woman's breast: One is not enough, three is too many. But before I could call the waitress over, the couple approached our table. He, a sturdy guy, self-conscious scruff, foreign accent; she, long blonde hair, lips shaped like a heart. We chatted. We drank some more. All four of us left together.

I would not need another Classic Twist. And later that night, I would discover that the saying about martinis and breasts is sometimes wrong, on both counts.

****

Stick around, and perhaps I'll finish the story sometime. In the meantime, I'll be blogging semiregularly here at gin + gelato (I'm of the slow blogging school, I'm afraid). And here's what this blog will include:

• chronicles of our journey to find the world's best gelato/ice cream;
• recipes from our attempts to create the same;
• musings on gin, and cocktail formulas;
• short fiction (in the hopes that you'll not only read it, but that artists in other media will steal my work and use it in other forms -- like make movies out of it);
• explorations of the intersection between the rational and the hedonistic;
  
• photographs;
• pointers and commentary on other artists, websites, blogs, etc.

I'm hoping that this will be a place not just for my monologues, but for conversation. Please comment, even if you're ripping me to shreds (I'm used to it, I've been a newspaper/magazine editor for eight years). Send me your recipes, reviews of gelato and gin, and other thoughts. Either with the comment option, or to my email: jonnypeace{at}tds.net

And please: enjoy.