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I've discovered something about food blogs and graduate school: they're often mutually exclusive. This semester has been manic, but I took today off and spent it in lovely Georgetown, Texas, just north of Austin, meeting a friend's horses, doing some low-level antiquing, eating hamburgers and drinking chocolate shakes at the fabulous Monument Cafe, and taking photos for the first time in weeks and weeks. They make my life look much more pastoral, horse-y and Texan than it really is (as evidence of my inexperience with these things, I managed to shock myself on an electric fence while taking one of these pictures. It felt kind of - snappy).
I have so many delicious things to share with you, including the tasty things I made for Australia Day way, way back in January. Coming soon (because so is Spring Break).
I'm spending my holidays back in England's Lake District, where snow is falling, snow on snow, and my days are spent walking in the hills or reading by the fire. I'm a pampered guest, so I'm not really cooking, but I'm feasting on things like Grasmere gingerbread and Cartmel sticky toffee pudding.
Thank you so much for reading O Pistachio this year (I can't believe it's nearly time for the one year anniversary!). And while I think of it, my very first post, early in 2009, was these lovely bread wreaths: they were perfect on our Christmas table.
I hope your holidays are full of peace, joy, and delicious baked goods.
Here are some photos of all the loveliness I'm enjoying.
As you can see, this is no ordinary gingerbread; it's really more like an intensely ginger-flavoured shortbread topped with sandy, sugary, gingery crumbs. It's been made since the 1850s in the tiny Lakeland village of Grasmere, famous as the home of William Wordsworth (and also sometimes Coleridge, and also that dandy junkie, Thomas de Quincey). The shop that sells it - which used to be the village school - is tucked into a corner of the churchyard where Wordsworth sleeps, and surrounded by the delicious fug of baking gingerbread.
It seems drastic to say that this is the best gingerbread I've ever eaten, but it is. The recipe's a secret, of course, but Jamie Oliver has a version here. Alternatively, you can mail order it here. The best thing, of course, would be to visit and eat it fresh.
Wildflowers in Wordsworth's House, Dove Cottage.
The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop
Church Cottage, Grasmere, Ambleside
Cumbria LA22 9SW UK
Tel: 015394 35428
www.grasmeregingerbread.co.uk
Chinatown, San FranciscoI've been home from my 2 weeks in Texas, California and Mexico for a week now, and I've finally made it through my photos and unpacked my bags. It's been an especially long transition back to normal life, and for the very best of reasons - I had such a wonderful time. Every one of these places was new to me. I now have a huge crush on California, am completely in love with Mexico, and am happy to say that I liked Austin, TX so much I'll be moving there in August.
Much of the trip wasn't particularly food-heavy - it was on-the-road kind of food, stopping where we could when we could, depending on what was around (good hearty breakfasts at tiny Buck Meadows outside Yosemite National Park, for example), but some meals really stood out (and of course, once we hit Mexico, everything was amazing).
I was in Austin only briefly, but ate a spectacular tomatillo pork burrito at:
El Chilito
2219 Manor Drive
Austin, Texas 78722
+1 512 382 3797
The highlight in California was my pulled pork sandwich and potato salad at:
Bounty Hunter Wine Bar & BBQ
975 First Street
Napa, California 94559
+1 707 226 3976
(And it was fascinating to see the table set for dinner at Hearst Castle, San Simeon, complete with paper napkins - embossed with WRH, of course - and ketchup in bottles.)
During our day and a half in Mexico City we ate from small taco bars, where they fried up thin strips of beef alongside your tortilla and served it all topped with raw onion, wedges of avocado and tomato, and squeezes of lime; or cheap and cheerful rotisserie chicken places, where the juicy joints came with fried potatoes, onions, red salsa and pickles.
The sweets and pastries were incredible, and I liked these 2 patisseries in particular:
Dulceria de Celaya
Avenida Cinco de Mayo 39
Colonia Centro
Mexico City
+52 55 55211787
Panificadora La Vasconia
Calle Tacuba 73
Colonia Centro
Mexico City
+52 55 210659
We spent nearly a week in Puebla, a beautiful and lively colonial city on the road between Mexico City and Oaxaca. The bus from Mexico City takes about two hours and passes between Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, Mexico's most famous volcanoes. Besides a fabulous wedding and the fascinating Good Friday procession through the streets of Puebla (Easter is a wonderful time to be in Mexico), we ate very well. I can't document all the little gordita stands we snacked at, or tell you the name of the purveyors of handmade tres leches ice cream who waited, with their wares in big tubs of salted water, at the foot of the Aztec pyramid in the small town of Cholula, but I can recommend these two restaurants in particular:
For Mexican fusion (I ate a smoked cheese risotto, duck confit chalupas, stuffed poblano chiles and an amaranth mousse) in a beautiful, minimalist space - a converted water treatment plant:
La Purificadora
Callejon de la 10 Norte 802
Paseo de San Francisco
Barrio el Alto
72000 Puebla
+52 (222) 309 192
http://www.lapurificadora.com/
For traditional Pueblan cuisine, like mole poblano (the famous spicy chocolate sauce was invented in a Pueblan convent), tinga poblana (stewed, shredded pork with chipotle) and chiles en nogada (poblano chiles stuffed with pork, served with a walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds):
Fonda de Santa Clara
3 Poniente 920
Col. Centro
72000, Puebla
52 (222) 246 1919http://www.fondadesantaclara.com/
Day of the Dead altar models in Puebla - including miniature mole poblano, sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Three weeks ago I was in Paris, and I went to the tea rooms of the Grand Mosque. There in an outdoor courtyard were blue tiled tables. There were sparrows at the feet of these tables, and when we sat at one a waiter gave us mint tea - not the clean, head-clearing mint tea I drink at home, but a thicker, sweeter version made with green tea, sugar and fresh mint. We ordered pastries from the counter - pistachio and almond flavoured sweets, and baklava. There was a hammam and a shop where we bought the soap used in the hammam, and a box of rose tea from Damascus. The sparrows flew to our table as we stood up to leave.
Another day in Paris, my friend took us to Les Doigts de Fée, a patisserie selling Arabic sweets near her home in the 20th. Here we ate hazelnut and sesame pastries, but there were also marzipan fruits, flaky almond biscuits, semolina cakes and filo pastries.
And more sweet mint tea - from a silver teapot on a silver tray.
Grande Mosquée de Paris
39 rue Geoffrey-Saint-Hilaire, Paris
9am - 11.30pm daily
Les Doigts de Fée
356 Rue des Pyrénées, Paris
Metro stop: Pyrénées
