Edibles rarely go to waste in my mother’s house. She’ll sauté stem greens with fenugreek and chilies, cook fish heads in broth, fry giblets for gajak, and any leftover repast not fit for more human consumption goes to the cats. Lemon and lime rinds are never thrown in the bin, my mum swipes them to place into a suspect jar kept in a cupboard beneath the sink where they are left to slowly ferment in vinegar, before my mum cooks the skins in her own made curry paste, then jars the lot and tops the citrus with a generous amount of oil. The result is a flavor that is distinctly Mauritian with a heady and flavorful dose of umami. My Western ex would jokingly refer to the mix as a jar of botulism. Luckily my mum doesn’t know what botulism means, and no Mauritian fridge is without a jar of  “achard” or “zasar” (pickle). I haven’t attempted to make an achard yet but when recently faced with two large bags of apples I decided to try and make a less daunting Mauritian condiment called kutcha – a sort of spicy chutney.  A lovely Facebook friend just informed me that kutcha means “raw” in Hindi, which makes sense because you want the fruit to have a crisp bite. Mauritians usually make kutcha from green mangoes but tart apples work just as well. Here is ma’s recipe. It lends itself well to a simple meal of dhal and rice. As my dad used to say: “a nous manzer” (let us eat). No risk of botulism involved.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of mustard powder

1 tbsp of turmeric powder

1 tbsp of fenugreek powder

1-2 tsp of chili powder

2-3 cloves of crushed garlic

8 tbsp of vegetable oil

2 tbsp of sugar

Salt

2 large tart apples

1 lemon

Grate the apples. Using your hands squeeze all the juice out, douse grated apple in lemon juice and save the juice. Make a paste with a little of the saved apple juice, mustard powder, turmeric, fenugreek, chili and garlic, season with salt. Heat oil in a pan, add the paste and let cook on a low heat for about 3 minutes, add a little more apple juice if the mixture starts to burn. Add grated apples and sugar, continue cooking and stirring for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat. Let cool. Store the kutcha in a glass jar, top with oil.

Mere days after my return to the freelance hustle, I took a trip three hundred and eighty miles north to Montreal. The occasion was to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of my friend Chantal Martineau – a Quebecois writer living in New York City. Chantal put together a gut-busting 3-day itinerary centered on eating and drinking.

A few hours after four hungry women pulled up to her mother’s house in Pointe-St-Charles, we took in our first meal. It was at Joe Beef. I know, I know, everyone is talking about Joe Beef these days. Trust me, it’s worth the hype. I had purchased the Joe Beef cookbook as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend after leafing through it’s pages at Chantal’s place. Filled with humor, local background, and crazy gimmicks that seem born out of stoner creativity, Joe Beef had me salivating. The restaurant’s menu is seafood and meat-heavy, the kitchen doesn’t shy away from pure unabashed fat, and the wine list has some gems. We ended up drinking a fairly powerful, super-focused old-vines (planted in 1929) Aligote 2010 produced by Francois Mikulski that was somewhat reminiscent of De Moor’s Aligote.

We finished with the Pepiere Cuvee Granit, a nervy and structured red that was perfect with our meaty main dishes. The joy of drinking Marc Olivier in Montreal can only be described as a little like spying a long lost relative in a room full of strangers. Comforting.

Le Trois Petite Bochons is possibly the best bar a vin naturel I’ve experienced outside of Paris. Perusing the list is a natural wine fanatic’s fantasy and the food was pretty exceptional. We started off with a champagne-method sparkling wine from the Loire – La Tour Grise 2001 Saumur Brut Non-Dose.

Left on the lees for a long time, the wine offered tons of yeast autolysis, and while dry, it was round and fairly rich. After the rich bubbly, a high-acid white was in order. We followed with a wine that was one of the most memorable of the week: a Boxler 2010 Sylvaner.

Man, Boxler wines are good. These wines show such pronounced acidity, mineral and complexity. There was too much to get excited about on that list. It simply means I have to go back again…

If you want a better overview of wine bars in the city, here is Ms. Martineau’s piece recently published in Food Republic.

I’m in Mauritius learning all the Mauritian recipes I can. Here’s a recipe for some typical Creole Mauritian repast; it’s a dry curried octopus dish (there’s no gravy here just a slightly pickled/sour glaze). We call it Vindaye.

Wash and cut two pounds of octopus.

Chop half a pound of shallots, mince an entire small bulb of garlic, split 2 thai chilis in half (lengthways). Have on hand: 1 tablespoon of whole black mustard seeds, one heaped teaspoon of turmeric, 2-3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

Put octopus into a deep pot and cover with cold water, bring to a boil. Cover and let cook for about 30 minutes.

In a frying pan heat about 6 tablespoons of canola oil, add mustard seeds, once they start spitting, add garlic, chili, shallots, turmeric and vinegar.

Using a slotted spoon, remove octopus from the pot of water and add into the frying pan. Don’t throw any remaining octopus broth away. Add salt and stir for about 2 minutes then add the octopus broth and let the dish continue cooking on medium heat until the water dries up and the oil rises.

The shallots should be crisp and the overall dish should be both bitter and sour. Serve with a baguette and green salad.

To mark the final day of my vacation in the city, the rains are falling. I am just returned from a soggy trip to Cortelyou Road with my Lefferts Gardens neighbor and CSW colleague, let’s call him JMW since we all go by our initials at the shop. This particular Sunday farmer’s market is surprisingly sizable. Knoll Krest Farm eggs, the ubiquitous Di Paolo’s (the “spoofulated” farm stand as JMW put it), Bardwell’s cheeses, and a couple of enticing seafood, grass-fed beef and usual Mexican specialty all-veg stands were there. It is not far from the breakfast serving Farm on Adderley – a restaurant I intend to hit in the next four weeks.

On a grander scale, I took my first journey north through Prospect Park to visit the Greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza yesterday. It is the second biggest greenmarket after Union Square but considerably more chill with a great many good stands for seasonal produce. I could have spent a bomb, had I had a bomb in my pocket, instead I made out with garlic scapes (so fucking earthy), and a small honeydew melon (that’s currently stinking out my apartment), along with sweet heirloom tomatoes, among other goodies.

Perhaps my favorite market journey of all was Borough Hall on Tuesday. It was simply sweet, sweet, sweet and heaving with peaches. The major score for me is that it’s situated a short walk away from Sahadi. Oh how I love Sahadi.

”

Departing from my greenmarket vacation forays, I also visited the new DeKalb Market with my good mate Chantal. It was hot and the sun was intense; it had that gritty urban feel that reminded me of a swap meet (the first time I heard this term I thought everyone was saying “swamp mead”) in a city like L.A.

DeKalb Market is sheltered in an abandoned lot surrounded by food stands (our choice that afternoon was unfortunately disappointing) and filled with tables and benches to nosh at while listening to the slightly too-loud music, spun live by one of the resident DJs. Being a Wednesday afternoon it wasn’t busy but the cross section of Brooklyn-ites was eclectic to say the least, consisting of the lunching local elderly, stroller mummies, cool afro-punk chicks and the occasional skinny hipster. Customized shipping containers house small boutiques. My favorites were the Pratt pop-up shop and Harriet’s By Hekima. The latter caused me to fish for my credit card to procure a playful navy tank top dress, flared at the bottom with a crazy ruffle of West African cotton print in loud yellow and red. I’ll be wearing it until Labor Day.

Lefferts Gardens isn’t a food destination. Manhattanites (or other Brooklyn kin) aren’t trekking here for off-the-beaten-path grub featured in influential publications, but for anyone that lives here, De Hot Pot is a sweet Trinidadian curry and roti café .

Vee cooks the food. She’s a moody lady and she’ll give you the cold shoulder if she feels like it, for no apparent reason. I like her despite the hot and cold temperature, or perhaps I like her for it. The first time I introduced myself as a newcomer to the neighborhood I was met with frosty skepticism. Until, that is, I told her Fritz (my neighbor and a long time Lefferts resident and Trini ex-pat) sent me. The ice melted. My intimate knowledge of achar (spicy Indian pickle) didn’t hurt either.

The third encounter had us bonding over curry recipes. I bemoaned the distance I had to travel for curry leaves. She looked at me oddly, tilted her head, and questioned, “girl, ya mean kari poulay?” The common language for curry leaves got me way excited. Vee gets her ingredients from Queens, where there is a large desi community. She travels to work everyday, from one borough to another.

On this visit I felt bold enough to approach the subject of roti.  I told her I’d never seen roti so big  – “it’s the size of a table cloth” exclaimed my friend Chantal — to which Vee explained that in Guyana the rotis are small like India but Trinidadians make them big for the practical purpose of feeding guests at large weddings and celebrations. It’s easier to roll out one big roti instead of three small ones when you’re feeding hundreds.

We’ve shared our love of bones with each other too. Here’s an excerpt (as much as I can recall) of another recent visit.

Me: Hi Vee, I’m here for goat curry. I like the bones, will you give me plenty of bones?

Vee: Ya like bone? Ya like me. I don need meat, jus bone.

And did she pile it on. I came home with a container overflowing with curry sauce and a roti the size of a tablecloth.

Here’s a picture, portioned out of course.

It is no secret that I have a taste for innards. Long before guts became trendy, I grew up munching on bone marrow (my favorite), fish eyes, tripe and I once ate some delectable sheep’s balls at the age of seven but my aunty didn’t tell me because I was scoffing them with such glee. My brother had to later reveal to me the true essence of what I was eating simply to gross me out.

There has been an offal renaissance in the UK and chef Fergus Henderson, has led the way for pure, simple, whole animal eating ever since opening his restaurant, St. John Smithfield, in the nineties. After traipsing around Shoreditch for the day, Jim and I sat in the glorious garden at the Geffrye Museum (a gem of an old Almshouse converted into a museum showcasing English interiors of the “middling” class from the 1600s onwards) and called St. John on a whim. A table happed to be open at seven. We walked through the maze to Clerkenwell, taking a trip through Smithfield Meat Market, a spot that perpetually smells like iodine and raw meat.

In the stark white dining room that is St. John we eyed the wine list, spotting wines from Eric Texier and Pierre Breton. We honed in on the Robinot Cuvee Bistrologie 2005 (a VdT Chenin Blanc), an amazing, weird, textured, cloudy and truly delicious wine and it faired well with our repast of cured beef and celeriac, butter beans and cauliflower (big meaty beans tossed in aromatic olive oil with leeks and capers) and heart (like a cross between liver and flank steak) with green beans.

We had to order Ferguson’s signature dish, bone marrow and parsley salad, which I’ve had a couple of times before and attempted to cook myself from his Nose to Tail Eating cookbook.

This particular dish brings back memories of the buttery, gelatinous goodness my parents would extract from their own plates of lamb or mutton bones and proffer to me with love when I was a wee thing.

More innards came my way at Hereford Road.

Jim and I arranged to stay in Notting Hill at Miller’s Residence for one night, courtesy of Martin Miller (owner of Martin Miller gin). Dinner reservations were a no-brainer once I’d read up on London-based food blogs and media reviews, which all raved about Hereford Road restaurant, a mere block away from our accommodations.

Upon entering Hereford Road, I noted that the décor was hideous but the menu sounded fantastic. Chef Tom Pemberton is a St. John alumni and the menu reads so faithfully from the St. John school of cooking. We ordered a plate of salty, crispy sand eels and a headcheese terrine for starters,

followed with pigeon and kidneys for mains. Now, I am not the faint-at-heart type when it comes to food but the kidneys…man those kidneys…they were FUNKY.

I had to take a deep breath before I dared stick a forkful in my mouth because the dish reeked of pee you see. I have fairly decent knowledge of biology and I’m fully aware of the kidneys functions but to have it so brazenly displayed on the plate turned my stomach a tad. Jim reckons it was my mood. He says that typically, a dish such as this would be right up my alley and he, of course, LOVED it. Admittedly, my belly wasn’t happy that day and Hereford Road may well have been bad timing on my part. I did, however, respect its unadulterated meat parts. Who else serves kidneys medium rare, unhindered by sauces and not stuffed into a pie?

I would go to Hereford Road again. And as Martin Miller remarked (he admitted he isn’t a fan of the restaurant) at least I can say I’ve been there – all I need is a t-shirt: “Been to Hereford Road: Ate kidneys.”

My mother used to shop at Brixton market a couple of times a week for Indian and Caribbean food supplies that she wasn’t able to find in Balham. Years later the same neighborhood became my nightlife outlet (The Dogstar and The Fridge for after-hours), now I visit Brixton whenever I’m in London and the memories come flooding.

I recall this cute little restaurant (if you can call it that – it had about 3 tables on premises) housed in Market Row, one of the many shopping arcades in the neighborhood that made decent pizza. The owner vacated the premises and an Italian from Naples moved in and set up shop. His name is not Franco – Franco Manca means Franco is gone…a reference to the previous owner.

Now, nestled among African fabric shops and stalls selling plantains and yucca, there is a line of Guardian-reading Brixtonites and gastronomes from all over London (and further) salivating for a bite of sourdough pizza with the most minimal of toppings. Some say it’s the best pizza in Britain.

Jim and I shared a basic mozzarella, tomato and house-cured ham pie.

I’m no pizza expert but I can say that I really enjoyed the weight and texture (not too thin and nowhere near thick) and tang of the dough. The menu consists of about six different bare-bones pizzas and you can either drink water, lemonade, a choice of one organic beer or house red or house white.

I opted for the house white, served at room temperature in a small glass tumbler. All I could muster is that it was a Cortese (probably from around Piedmont) and is sourced and bottled by Wild Caper, a cute little deli across the way in Market Row, also owned by Franco Manca proprietor and pizza man, Giuseppe Mascoli. The label indicated the lemony-tasting vino was low in sulphites and at something like £1.75 a glass it was one of the most palatable bargains I’ve had. The bottle sells at Wild Caper for about five quid and it blows the supermarket shit (at the same price) that most Britons drink out of the water.

Mr. Mascoli must have a good sense humour too. Check out the wall art. Another memory I have of growing up the the UK are the Thatcher years…but let’s not go there, shall we?

The spirited dinners at Tales take place on the same night at various restaurants in New Orleans. For the most part a guest mixologist creates a menu of drinks to work with the chef’s 3-course dinner. It costs 100 bucks per person and it’s a major deal. Jim joined me this year and we attended the Calcasieu dinner, which is the private space above Cochon. The menu was delicious and the drinks were stellar because Eben [Klemm] and Eben [Freeman] were our bartenders for the night. The first concoction [created by Freeman] was a sumptuous drink called the Cornbread Old Fashion’, which offered a distinct sweet corn taste within a body of warming bourbon. It was weird and brilliant. Freeman’s next potion was the, faintly celery-tasting Lovage Sour, a mix of Beefeater Gin, dry vermouth and the lovage herb. The drink was paired with baked stuffed gulf oyster with bacon.

Klemm gave us a lighter, aromatic cocktail in the form of Bay Brees, a blend of St. Germain and bay leaf syrup. It was as delicate as it was pretty and was served with seared jumbo shrimp with port risotto and lemon salsa verde. Klemm’s next drink, Earth, was a twist on a dark n’ stormy, made from dark rum, averna and beet juice, garnished with ginger [dehydrated] jerky. It was intensely hued and had a lovely earthy savoriness about it. Earth’s edible partner was a plate of roasted duck breast with duck boudin and figs.

To top it all off, both mixologists created nutty, postprandial cognac drinks. Klemm’s was a creamy poppy seed tipple named The Karzai (an interesting reference to Afghanistan’s poppy seed cultivation) and Freeman’s was an amaretto-like drink of cognac infused with walnuts.

TOC’s parties are mostly fabulous though some are getting cheesy now big (and not necessarily good) brands are getting involved. The best shindigs had to be Hendrick’s Burlesque party, alas I got there too late and missed the action but the drinks were good and the crowd was fun. Later that night the party moved onto Donald Link’s Herbsaint, where we sat outside with a bunch of industry folk and sipped whatever was going around.

On the last night we partook in a funeral procession from Hurrah’s into the French Quarter. The Red Headed Slut [cocktail] had kicked the bucket, or rather Simon Ford, brand ambassador for Plymouth Gin, shoved her into a coffin, declared her dead and a bunch of other bartenders rejoiced. She was a drink that shall not be missed.

The jazzed-up funeral was led by an excellent second line band, Plymouth Gin drinks were handed out along the way and our shuffle through the streets of New Orleans ended at Latrobe’s for the Bartender’s Breakfast. An event I took to literally mean a sit down affair involving a plate of eggs benedict. It turned out to be the best party I’ve been to in years. Milk and Honey,
Employees Only, Contemporary Cocktails were among the stands making cocktails. We boogied the night away and then rounded up TOC 2009 at the Old Absinthe House…

Tales of the Cocktail makes you wish you could be at two, nay make that three, places at once. With too many cool and relevant seminars, fabulous dinners, lunches, offers to meet with master distillers, brand owners, mixologists and, throw in meetings with an editor or two – it’s a dizzying affair of too much going on at the same time.

The How’s and Why’s of Cocktails was a good basic seminar led by Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club and Tony Conigliaro. Conigliaro is a bartender based in London who just opened a new cocktail bar in Islington, that I’ll be checking out when I go to London in a few weeks, called 69 Colebrook Row. Audrey and Tony made a good team, encouraging bartenders to think outside the box. Turns out Audrey is friends with Harold McGee and sometime consults with him on food science and lore when trying to create a new drink. Apparently it can take her two years of trial and error before she feels a cocktail is ready for the menu. Such was the case (though not sure if it took at long as 2 years) for her infamous Earl Grey MarTEAni, a drink she originally created for the Ritz Carlton in London.

It was particularly interesting when they talked about Europe VS US trends. Tony described the Brits as liking tall, refreshing, lighter-style drinks, while Audrey emphasized New York’s love for boozy classics and bitters. You can make that same comparison when it comes to the West Coast and the East Coast. SF drinks tend to utilize moor fruit. A visit to Death & Co, Mayahuel or PDT proves that we love our gin, whisk(e)y and tequila with bitters, herbal liqueurs, sherry and amaro, lemon or lime juice tends to be the only fruit present.

I had to make the Cognac from Vine to Shaker seminar because I have a soft spot for grape distillates and several of my favorite industry people were there, Jack Robertiello (my once editor turned friend), Jean Louis Carbonnier (he represents a number of great wine and spirits regions) and Jim Meehan from PDT. Guillame Lamy from Pierre Ferrand cognac was also on the panel. There was a lot of talk about trying to get cognac out of its bling image and into a more accessible role. Meehan talked about classic cocktails using cognac. He acknowledged that selling a cognac cocktail isn’t easy but there are a few tricks up his sleeve: list the cocktail high up on the menu, cucumbers in a mixed drink always seem to sell well, case in point is the French Maid served at PDT (muddled cucumber, mint, lime and cognac).

Angus Winchester and Simon Ford ran The World’s Best Bar Crawl seminar. It was a case of two industry Brits sharing their list of the best bars in the world. Clearly, I have a lot of traveling and drinking to do. I’ve been to the bars marked with an asterisk. Here’s the rundown.

NORTH AMERICA

PX, Vancouver
Westin, Calgary
Flatiron Lounge, NYC *
Milk & Honey, NYC *
PJ Clarkes, NYC
Old Town Bar, NYC
PDT, NYC *
Pegu Club, NYC *
King Cole Bar and Lounge, NYC
The Rainbow Room, NYC
Death & Company, NYC*
The Florida Room, Miami
Bourbon, Washington D.C.
The Gibson, Washington D.C.
Drink, Boston
Vessel, Seattle
Zig-Zag Café, Seattle
Bix, San Francisco
Bourbon and Branch, San Francisco
Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, San Francisco
The Doheny, L.A.
The Edison, L.A. *
The Carousel Bar, New Orleans *
The Old Absinthe House, New Orleans*
Alibi, New Orleans
Bel Ami Restaurant and Lounge, Oregon
Churchill Downs, Kentucky

SOUTH AMERICA
Café Tortoni, Buenos Aires

UK
Merchant’s Hotel, Belfast
Quatch Bar, Speyside
Bramble, Edinburgh
Salvatore at Fifty, London
The Dukes Hotel, London
Quo Vadis, London
Milk & Honey, London
The Lab, London *
The Savoy Hotel, London *

EUROPE
Apoteke, Norway
Ruby, Copenhagen
Door 74, Amsterdam
Barfly’s Club, Vienna
Widder Bar, Zurich
Paparazzi Bar, Bratislava
UFO, Bratislava
Widder Bar, Zurich
Le Lion de Paris, Hamburg
Schumanns, Munich
Becketskoff, Berlin
Hemmingway Bar, Paris *
Hotel Costes, Paris
Harry’s New York Bar, Paris
Dry martini, Barcelona
Boadas, Barcelona
Nottingham Forrest, Milan

MIDDLE EAST
Burj Al Aran, Dubai

MIDDLE EAST
Burj Al Aran, Dubai

EASTERN EUROPE
Sky Bar, Moscow

ASIA
High Five, Tokyo
Tender Bar, Tokyo
Captain’s Bar, Hong Kong
China Club, Hong Kong
Raffles, Singapore
Tippling Club, Singapore
Constellation, Shanghai
Olives, Mumbai
Rick’s, Delhi

DOWN UNDER (According to Simon Ford, the Aussies have the most fantastic cocktail culture than anyone else on the planet)
Der Raum, Melbourne
Tiki Lounge & Bar, Melbourne
Bayswater Brasserie, Sydney
Matterhorn, Wellington, NZ

EURASIA
Sky Bar, Moscow

ASIA
High Five, Tokyo
Tender Bar, Tokyo
Captain’s Bar, Hong Kong
China Club, Hong Kong
Raffles, Singapore
Tippling Club, Singapore
Constellation, Shanghai
Olives, Mumbai
Rick’s, Delhi

DOWN UNDER (According to Simon Ford, the Aussies have the most fantastic cocktail culture than anyone else on the planet)
Der Raum, Melbourne
Tiki Lounge & Bar, Melbourne
Bayswater Brasserie, Sydney
Matterhorn, Wellington, NZ

Nevia, arguably one of the best of farmer’s market stands (we like Rick Bishop too) in NY is currently offering pementos de padron. I rejoiced and I purchased. About twenty peppers into a plate of freshly sautéed goodness I got a hot one. Bingo!

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A few months back, my shellfish allergy meant copious amounts of padron peppers in lieu of crustaceans during a trip to Rias Baixas. I couldn’t get enough of the piquant, vitamin c-charged capsicums at the time. And now I can get them from my local farmer’s market. This makes me exceedingly happy. I experienced a rush when I made my transaction.

It’s summer time in New York. Summer is when my personal chef (and husband) shines. Today’s menu is a locavore’s feast. We procured a slab of flank steak from a new butcher’s shop in the Chelsea Market. Not yet fully opened, Dickson’s Farmstand Meats was offering a peek preview of beef from two different farms. One raises strictly grass-fed cows, while the other feeds his cattle with a mix of grass and grain. We opted for the former. Jim marinated and grilled the meat with garlic scapes, made his summer specialty succotash (corn with some bloody expensive fava beans) and a light cucumber and tomato salad. The steak was as lean as grass fed beef usually is but filled with immense flavor.

The wine to top it all off was a Thierry Puzelat KO rosé. Get a load of the mouth-watering condensation on the bottle.

In the natural wine world, Puzelat is what Kurt Cobain was to grunge. He defines low-interventionist wine and I’m a groupie, along with about half of Tokyo from what I hear. The KO rosé is juicy and fruit-forward with a peppery finish and has that just-fermented, from-the-tank kind of quality. It’s $13.99 and you should get a case of it. C’est l’été enfin.