Selling Out

And so, I've purchased an iPhone. It's an old, old generation, and refurbished, and somewhat that makes me feel a little bit better. I still feel like I'm selling out. Oh, bother.

Regardless: here's dinner at grandma's. Brown rice, chicken, greens and veggies salad, and sweet plantains. Yay abuela!

Try and try, again

So, because of some training coming up in April, I have to take my vacation time in February. It works out okay though, since I am able to take it during School's Winter Recess which also happens to be my anniversary week.

I decided to try to start the week off right by attempting to cook dinner for Mi Cariño.

Variation on a theme, really. White rice with corn, cabbage and carrot salad, stewed eggplant, maduros, black bean patty, and banana. The rice was a little low on salt, and as I always I was very insecure about the results but Mi Cariño assured me that it was good and tasty and well, we devoured all of it, so I guess we enjoyed it. Let the awesome anniversary week begin!

Vacation all I ever wanted!

Today began my "Holidays" vacation - I am off until next year! I worked until 1:30pm, then came home to this wonderful meal cooked by my mother.

Locrío de pollo with a banana, and a wonderful salad comprised of romaine, carrots, chayotes, cucumbers, radishes, and an oil, vinegar and onions dressing. Lick your fingers good, and the perfect start to a vacation!

Later tonight the girls and I will have our "Christmas/Hannukah Dinner." This is our second year having it, and it's kind of nice - we're going back to the same steak place where we ate last year to exchange gifts, have some good conversation, and devour some meat.

Que me des tu cariño...

So, Mi Cariño's birthday is coming up, and I've been toying with different presents and what not. One idea, since her birthday falls in the middle of the week is to cook for her. But that sounds cheesy, not to mention that I think she wants a shindig (a quiet one) with friends around that are not me.

Since I have no big plans for this beautiful Saturday, I decided to just cook while she's away working on her poetry. This has not been at all influenced by all the talking she did last night while we were at her Line Sister's home - you know, where she's talking about how I keep talking about knowing how to cook but that I've yet to cook for her and what not. This was unfortunate because indeed, I tried to cook for her on one of my days off last week, but it just didn't work out. In any case, this was my idea, don't you let her tell you any different.

This was quite the nerve wracking experience, and I wasn't sure as to what to cook. I decided to go for something easy and that I've often cooked: Locrio de salami. Now, Mi Cariño is not a habitual salami eater, but I figured she would eat it if I cooked it and so I went along. Locrio de Salami is special for me because it was one of the first meals I learned to cook, but most importantly it was one of the first (if not the first) meal I cooked that I was proud of.

In any case, the day began with shopping ingredients for the meal: rice, salami (of course), the appropriate seasonings, bananas, cabbage and tomatoes. Once back it was a matter of pre-cooking the salami, adding the seasonings, water, and when that boiled, the rice. Then it was just to cover it and wait.

Cooking rice is horrible. I never get the ratio of water to rice right it feels, but I got really lucky this time I think. While the rice was cooking I prepared the salad, which consisted of cabbage, some carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes. When Mi Cariño got home, I asked if she wanted maduros as well, but I think she wisely wanted to take it slow.

Here's the finished product:

If I do say so myself, it was pretty tasty. I think Mi Cariño enjoyed it, too. So, not too bad.

Sunday Nights at Home

I'm spoiled. There, I've said it. My mother is an excellent cook, and now that she and my grandmother are home, I never go hungry. Between the two of them I'm in food heaven, and you know what? I'm done feeling guilty about it!

Sunday, Mi Cariño and I took our sweet time getting up and being productive, which is a nice thing to do once in a while. We followed that with rushing to the West Village for our first Volleyball Class. Thankfully this one didn't hurt the body as much as the try-outs did, but I didn't play as well as I did in the try outs. We'll see how it goes in the forthcoming lessons.

After the almost 3 hours of delicious torture I made my way back to Brooklyn where Mami and Abuela made sure I was hooked up with some locrío de pollo, with banana, and a side veggie and cabbage salad. Feast your eyes on this beautiful example of Dominican cooking:

For a close-up of the locrío:

And yes, banana and rice? beyond awesome.

Spike It!

I love Volleyball. I mean that; playing Volleyball has always given me an amazing feeling: I remember learning while still in Middle School, playing with one of my neighborhood friends in the middle of the street, daydreaming of High School when we'd be allowed to play in an actual team. That led to actually being in my High School Team, and two glorious seasons of Volleyball playing, plus two glorious seasons of training with the boys team.

After High School, I haven't really had many opportunities to play and so I was elated when my friend Marls suggested we join a Volleyball League. I remembered Gotham Volleyball, an LGBT league that plays in the Village and that I tried joining 10 years ago, and so here we are. Marls couldn't make it but we made our way there and played our butts off for over two hours. It was beyond amazing, running around the court behind a ball. I don't know how to explain it, I know it must be a mixture of adrenaline and endorphins and I don't know what, but it feels like more than that. It's almost... spiritual.

After I made my way to Bushwick, already sore but elated, and stopped by the Church for some free food.

Moro de habichuelas negra, corn, ensalada rusa, vegetable lasagna, veggie meat, garlic bread, plus awesome purple cabbage. It was so good, it was tough to only go for one serving, but the hurting body helped me remember one was enough.

The evening ended with an email from Gotham Volleyball letting me know that I made it into their class and so now I'm looking forward to practicing and playing Volleyball at least once a week. Huzzah!

Thursday Night In

After mucho planning Cesar and I eventually just decided to have dinner Thursday night. After work I took the train to Queens were I met up with him. He was already on his way to finishing dinner.

Cesar is a true entertainer, even when it's just a night in. We began the evening by having a delicious salad. It had figs, cucumbers, green peppers, strawberries, romaine lettuce, goat and blue cheese with a dressing of oil and balsamic vinagrette. He topped the salad with crumbled homemade rosemary bread.

We followed that with a main course that consisted of Fingerling potatoes smothered in extra virgin olive oil, garlic, onions, carrots and butter; fillet mignon, a veggie portion of chopped carrots, peas, corn and green beans, and some scallops.

I ate every bit of that, even the scallops which I did not really like, but I can now say that I've tried it. Everything was done to perfection, specially the fillet mignon and potatoes. I'm hungry again just by looking at that picture.

We finished the evening by watching "Win Win" on demand. A Paul Giamatti movie, the flick is about a lawyer in Jersey who does something unethical when his practice is running into trouble and his family is running out of money. But in the process he helps a young boy and eventually ends up helping his entire family and himself. It was a very subtle commentary on the times, showed a very level (under the circumstances) teenager, and a loving family that worked through their problems happily. The entire thing was well performed and you really fell in love with the teenage boy that throws Paul Giamatti's character and his family on its ear. I totally recommend. I also recommend driving down the highway with the radio on high, screaming a song (any song.) It's good for the soul.

It's going to be hard to move out

When Mami keeps coming up with meals like these

yet another version of a chicken salad; this one with breaded chicken, sliced raw cabbage, mandarins, some potatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and a little bit of lettuce underneath it all.

Hint of Spring

Friday morning was glorious - a delicious hint of Spring was in the air and I was off from work. After doing some last minute work things (you can be off from work but work still needs to get done!), Cesar drove by to pick me up. First we hunted Latino Music Stores searching for an Olga Tañon CD, but no luck. We were starving, so we met up with his mom for lunch at an Ecuadorian restaurant in Queens. I unfortunately did not jot down the name.
They gave us some roasted peanuts to begin the meal

Then we shared some Fish Tamal

Which came with lots of onions

and white rice

I actually had a delicious grilled chicken salad, and tostones, but I was so excited to eat them, that I forgot to take a picture of them!
I did however, take a picture of Cesar's dessert, a slice of tres leches cake

Afterwards, we (as in I!) drove to the Home Depot to pick up some tulips, turf builder, pots and perennials and what not, because we decided to garden. Since neither Cesar nor I know anything about that, we picked up Mami and got to work.

Cesar, his mom and Bruce were very impressed with Mami's knowledge and speed. I tried my best to do what I was told. Hopefully the garden will grow beautiful and Mami will be able to visit and enjoy working on it some more. Here's the finished product:

and a close up

Afterwards, we finished the day with a good glass of red

and Carmen cooked for us all - pasta salad and breaded chicken cutlets. But no pictures of that. All in all, a great day.

Thursdays are made of this

Although still trying my hardest to save money, decided to go for lunch at work after flying in from Indiana. Mostly because that's about the only way I can guarantee I actually take the full lunch hour and not start working while I eat or something. Gaspar and I chose to stop by National Thai. I know, I know, Thai food again! But, I at least chose to eat something different. Pad Pak Thai, which is essentially tofu and veggies in a yummy sauce

Come night time, I joined Cesar for a small, small dinner party. This time I actually helped with the preparing of the meals! We had sausages and french bread toast

and many more delicious things: Corned beef and cabbage with roasted vegetables (potatoes, carrots, broccoli and what not, all tossed with a creamy substance I don't remember the name of). Then there was  the Irish Soda Bread, olives, mushrooms and canolis for dessert.

Here's the table set for the guests

I did not take pictures of the finished meal because I was too busy eating and having a good time. Wake up in Indianapolis, lunch in Brooklyn and Dinner in Queens... not bad for a day's work.

Friday Night In

So I leave tomorrow for Fishers, IN, and I had no desire to spend any money, so Friday night found me at home, ready to start packing and eating some of my Mami's home cooked meals. It was a pretty chill night - I enjoyed some Fringe late in the evening after I finished packing, but first I sat to enjoy Mami's version of a grilled chicken salad:

Your eyes are feasting on grilled chicken, of course, broccoli, chopped tomatoes, chopped raw white onions, parsley, pepper, salt, oil and vinegar.

Simple and super delicioso. Living with Mami definitely has its perks.

Of Rainy Days With Tons Of Food

Thursday found me working in the Chinatown area of Flushing in Queens, NY. Although I had packed my Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, it felt like a crime to be there and not have some Chinese food, so during lunch hour Carolina and I walked a couple of blocks til we found Sunway.

The place was very clear and spacious, with Ikea like furniture. The menu was HUGE. The only hard part about it is that even though all items were in English  (and I have no idea if it was Mandarin, Cantonese, what) there were no descriptions of the dishes. I latched unto the idea of Soupy Noodles (they have a whole section) and basically just asked the waitress if there was anything with thin noodles in soup with tofu and vegetables. She hooked me up with some fried tofu dumped in soupy noodles and veggies and this is what I got:

Ah yes, I forgot to mention, you also got complimentary tea with every meal, which was perfect on a rainy day. The soup was huge and delicious and it was hard not to inhale the entire thing. My co-worker had some un-soupy noodles that were to die for as well.

We finished the meal by having pan-fried vegetarian dumplings for dessert

They were perfect. And Hot. And I kinda liked that they brought things as they were ready - the soup and the noodles were done first, and the dumplings last.

Later, after the workday was done and I braved the madness that was the 7 and the E trains during the evening rush hour, I found my way to another part of Queens: Forest Hills. There I visited sweet Cesar, who in true Gay Fashion was holding a dinner party.

Since we were all busy having fun eating and joking with each other, I forgot to take pictures of the food. We had, however, short grain rice with gandules, and pernil with a green salad. It was a very simple yet delicious meal. Afterwards we helped our hosts flip their mattress (I'm not kidding) since the thing was a gazillion pounds and it took about 5 of us to carry it. Having worked off our meal we retired to the living room to enjoy the fire and the company of Idina Menzel, Cesar's puppy.

Eventually it was time to head home and Cesar was kind enough to give three of us a ride. However we took a detour on our way to Bed-Stuy, and stopped by Japanese Restaurant Miyako in Williamsburg for some dessert. My flash wasn't working so I'm sorry for the picture darkness. We had red bean and green bean fried ice cream with tea

and deep fried banana with whipped cream

I was very proud of me in that I only had a taste of each. They were tasty, though!

Rain and all, the day was pretty great. It makes me wish I had a car - despite the traffic in the city, it's kinda great to go home and not have to wait for trains and get to enjoy some loud music as we drive.

Welcome to Bahston!

So I spent a weekend in Boston, thanks to work. Here's the view from my hotel room in the downtown/theater area. It coincided with the JETS vs. Patriots Game, which was interesting. The fun thing, though, was to catch up with Fabi. We went for Thai food, because we both love it.

The steamed veggie dumplings were a beauty, and it was nice not having to do any dunking since the sauce was directly on the dumplings. Also, they practically gave me a salad with them, which was very nice and tasty.

I, yet again, had the tofu pad thai. It was alright. The thing that set it over the top is that since the pad thai arrived almost at the same time as the dumplings, I just dumped the dumplings (pardon all the aliteration) over the pad thai. It was a great combination and it made me very happy.

The next day, in preparation for the football game, we stopped by a local Dominican place and got ourselves some chimichurris.

These are a little different than the one's I'm accustomed to, but it was still pretty good. I should've listened to Fabi and taken a pic with the sandwich in half. I don't have an eye for these things. I have a great taste for them though.

Afterwards, we snuck into an Irish bar and posed as Patriots fans, rejoicing quietly when the JETS beat the crap out of them. To celebrate, I broke the diet thoroughly and we had ourselves a brownie sundae.

The brownie could've been warmer, but the sweet taste of victory lingered, so all was good in our book.

The work weekend was great, specially since it ended with homemade food by Fabi's mom. It's nice to get your lunch delivered.

White rice, red beans, some delish beef.

The only thing missing was visiting some Hahrvard Bar to spout craziness with the students, ala Good Will Hunting. How do ya like them apples!

Gramma's House

Working hard at eating in this year. I haven't done a great job at cooking because I'm not much of a cook, but practice makes perfect.

Dinner today is at Gramma's house. We have lentejas, trigo, lettuce salad, stuffed pepper. Healthy and tasty!

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Locrio de Salami

Locrio is a beautiful word. It's a wonderful dish, too. It's rice and whatever meat you choose (except beef) cooked together in a pot. Think Paella, think jambalaya, think arroz con - and you'll have an approximation of locrio.

In my quest to get better at this cooking thing, I decided to make locrio de salami. It's one of my favorite dishes, one because I love salami, and two, because it's one of the earliest things I learned to cook. I must've been 10/11/12 because I was still in Junior High when I learned. I can remember very clearly the redness of the salami mami used, the shape of our kitchen, my desire to get the hell out of there and go read a romance novel.

In any case, I'm going to walk you through the steps. First, you want some chopped onion, crushed garlic, cilantro, chicken bouillon cube, green peppers, salt, and of course, salami. Saute the crap outta that.

Add tomato paste and allow for that to cook well, too.

When everything is nice and a little bit cooked (you don't want to overcook it now) add your water. Rule of thumb is that for every cup of rice you cook, you use a cup of water. You have to be careful with the rice/water ratio. It's what makes the difference between mushy rice and fluffy beautiful rice. In any case, you add your water, you rinse your rice (Dominicans rinse it twice. Some say that that washes all the few nutrients that white rice has. I don't know if it's true, but I rinse twice 'cuz that's how I learned it) and when the water starts boiling, you add your rice. You stir it once to make sure it won't stick to the bottom of the pan right away. You leave your pot uncovered until the water diminishes. When the water is practically gone, then you stir the rice, making a little mound inside the pot. That's so that you don't get concon on the sides, too. Cover tightly.

In the Dominican, we always cooked rice with a pressure cooker. Here, I've resorted to covering the pot with aluminum foil and then the cover - keeps the moisture and vapors in, which is what you want, but this could backfire, because if you leave alone too long, mushy rice.

When your rice is done, you stir it once and leave it cooking for a few more minutes. This is what I had when done.

Not a bad deal. Although I have to admit, memory is a tricky thing - I remember everything being so red, ya know?

Now, on to la compaña. For salad, I chopped some raw cabbage very thinly, and some cucumbers.

two of my favorite salad thingies. Then, fried some plátano maduro.

Add to the whole thing a guineo (Taino word that means banana that is now part of the Dominican Lexicon) and if you're wondering, a guineo? Well, you always should have guineo with your locrio, it just goes together well. Finished plate:

Not a bad deal, if I do say so myself. I'm getting there, I'm getting there.

Whip It

So, I'm attempting to cook and stuff. I was too involved to remember to take pictures while I cook. Next Time I suppose.

Menu consisted of Rice with green pigeon peas, eggplant in tomato sauce, a cabbage, avocado, and cucumber salad, and maduros. I had the lil boo buy some roasted chicken cause I didn't feel capable of tackling protein just yet.

Took me about an hour and forty five minutes. We did a rudimentary table set up, so that we could eat like proper adults at the table.

Lil Boo brought some white wine that did complement the meal very well. We lit some candles, turned off lights, and served ourselves. My plate:

I really like cabbage.

Not bad for a first try - after all I haven't "really" cooked since 2009, I think. The salad is hard to mess up and was nice. The Maduros were perfect, not too brown. What I was proudest of, though, was the eggplant - I'm an eggplant lover, and it came out delicious. Just the right spicy, with a strong garlic hint, and all nice and mushy. The one thing that I could've done better? the rice, or moro de gandules verdes.

I think I just got nervous and didn't think. It came out underseasoned mostly because when I was preparing the sofrito and the green pigeon peas, I was preparing for less rice. If I had worked on that measuring better, the rice would've been tastier.

Afterwards we retired to the living room to watch Whip It, finish off the wine and some presidentes, and have a bite of store bought Coffee Crumb Cake. Whip It was just as good as I remembered - better even, since I watched it this time in a happier atmosphere than when I watched it in the theaters. I have to say though, I was really dissappointed about the DVD's Extras - namely that there weren't any. What's up, Drew Barrymore? Why no behind the scenes!?

In any case, I have enough for leftovers for lunch, so not bad, eh? Thanks Lil Boo, for willingly being my guinea pig!

Barefoot in the kitchen

Mi Cariño made me dinner. I share with the world.

YUM.

She also made me watch "Que pasa, USA," which I'm happy to say was good. Very funny. I sang the theme song while at work and now the Floridians I work with want to borrow her DVD's. Ha.

De los paises

So I mentioned in my last post, my Tio is visiting from the Dominican Republic. My sister took advantage of his plane ticket and sent me masa de empanada de yuca (the dough to make yucca empanadas.) We fried them this morning.

This is unadultered empanada - that is, no added colorants to make it reddish. To make this you take Yucca, peel it (they're really fun to peel), grate it. When you grate yucca, you get this soft, actually kinda wet result.  I don't really remember the following steps to make the dough, though (ha!) and don't feel like faking knowledge by looking it up. But if you search for "empanada de yuca" you'll find plenty of results. Fried Yucca soaks up oil, however, so if your stomach is not the kind that can take oily foods well in the morning, I suggest you eat this for lunch or dinner. In any case, thank you Manita!

A girl worth fighting for

Went to my Abuela's house for Sunday dinner and to visit with my uncle, who's here from the Dominican Republic. We had a nice walk over to Grandma's house, but did not run into a wolf, which actually was kind of disappointing.

Abuela made some Salmon, White Rice, Ensalada Verde (your regular lettuce, tomato, onion, broccoli, please don't give me avocados deal) and black beans with auyama. (That's pumpkin or your basic winter squash for you, anglos.)

Dessert was courtesy of Tio, who brought it from the D. R.

I know it looks a little suspicious, but don't be deceived - this is REALLY better than what it looks like. It's called Jalao, and its Coconut and Honey Candy and it's super easy to make. Literally, it's just dry ground coconut, honey, and a smidgen of oil. I used to make these all the time as a child, and it's great fun to do so because they're gooey and sticky. You boil your ground coconut with the honey, stirring often. After 2 to 3 minutes, you turn the stove off, you let the gooey goodness cool a little, and then you make little balls. The oil is literally just to place it on your plate or cookie sheet so it won't stick too much. You can eat it cold or just room temperature. The only other Dominican Candy that's even easier to make than this one is dulce de leche cortada, (and granted, this might be a Caribbean Candy instead of just a Dominican one.) If you'd like to know, dulce de leche cortada means "Ruined Milk Candy." And you take your Milk that has gone bad/sour, you boil it with sugar, a cinnamon stick and a bit of lemon rind and you've got yourself delicious goodness. I often got in trouble for "souring" the milk on purpose (pour some lemon on it and it's screwed up right quick.)

But back to the present. Jalao? Really good! My nephew and I finished the day by first watching Mulan as the "adults" talked and lounged. That's right. Mulan. I love me some Mulan. I will sing "Be a Man" at the slightest provocation, and "a girl worth fighting for" is not far behind. But even Eddie Murphy couldn't drown out the "adult" talk, so Nephew and I took a breather and went to the park.

Not bad.

La casa de Nina Skyy

Last Thursday I met up with my very good friend after work and he kidnapped me and took me home with him to cook me dinner. Woe is me.

His house is gorgeous! He lives in the faraway land known as Queens. We decided to eat in the backyard since the weather was so beautiful.  We began the meal with some deliscious cheese and beef empanadas, dipped in his special sauce, which consists of sofrito, mayo and ketchup.

We followed appetizers with a bit of wine and some fire while we relaxed on the outside couch.

Before dinner we also took a walk through the neighborhood - the houses are all very pretty, but I loved all the trees everywhere. Gotta love Spring.

Finally, dinner was ready - Steak, mashed potatoes with cauliflowers, butter (no milk), toasted bread crumbs, roasted garlic and carrots. Add some caubernet sauvignon and the evening was complete.

Thank you my love!!

Adventures, big and small, happen everywhere. A little bit of traveling WHILE at home makes me very happy.