Oaxaca: La Olla

Could there be anything wrong with an airline that serves complimentary booze?

I'd say no, except I did find one thing. The airline could serve it on a red-eye flight, the people behind yours truly become trashed and start talking REALLY LOUDLY all. freaking. night. long.

With that said, however, I do have to give a massive shout-out to Mexicana Airlines. Fantastic service, decent food, tons of leg room, and the aforementioned free booze. Top all of that with a great fare and our trip to Oaxaca was off to a boozy and thrifty start.

By the time we arrived, we were massively sleep-deprived and needed some calories and caffeine. La Olla has been mentioned on many food and travel sites, so we decided to stop there for breakfast. The one thing we loved about Oaxaca was the strong coffee. It's strong and beautifully balanced, so we were chugging mug after mug of black coffee without cream or sugar. Even though I'm not a big fan of adding cream and sugar to my coffee, I usually do it when I think it'll help. In Oaxaca, however, it would have ruined the perfectly pungent brew.

The bread was delicious... sweet with a vaguely wheat-y earthiness.

The condiments? Yes, that's right... jam, salsa, and the best butter on this planet. The butter was so rich and so flavorful that we considered trying to sneak it back into the States. Or take regular trips across the border to Tijuana to buy butter. Jam and salsa seemed weird at first, but they paired surprisingly well. We probably weren't supposed to pair them, but hey, they were there...

I ordered a tortilla de flor de calabaza (squash blossom frittata). The egg was mixed with squash blossoms, zucchini, onion, and epazote, a herb that is supposed to be pungent, but seemed to blend seamlessly with the other flavors. I could also have been so sleep-deprived that my brain wasn't processing unfamiliar flavors.

I don't normally like omelets for breakfast because they can be really heavy. Yet, this one was light and refreshing and was still heavy enough to stave off hunger for a while. All and all, a worthy stop in Oaxaca. La Olla is part of the Casa de los Bugambilias B&B and is also linked to the La Casa de los Sabores cooking school, which was highly recommended in our research for Oaxacan cooking classes.

La Olla
Reforma No. 402-1
Col. Centro Oaxaca, Oax. Mexico, 68000

Where I've been...

Oh, crap... it's May. Almost June.

After many attempted comebacks, I'm starting yet another one. It's been a while and life has been incredibly busy. The first half of 2009 has been filled with travel, some great projects, and amazing food... here's a mini-scrapbook:

Land of seven moles...

Land of enchantment...

Land of 10,000 lakes...

Land of insanely fabulous cheese...

Land of fabulous food...

Lastly, we've been scrambling to get things done by August. Someone once told me that wedding planning was busy at the beginning, a lull in the middle, and scrambling at the end. I agree, because once we had a venue, we procrastinated like hell.

Now we're scrambling like crazy to get things done... it feels like we're planning the wedding in three months!

In the midst of all of this, I found out that grad school wasn't going to happen this year. I was waitlisted at a couple of schools and finally formally rejected at the end of April. Oh, well... my consolation is another year in beautiful San Diego and another year of fabulous eats.

Let's hope this is the return of semi-regular posting... starting with that long-overdue recap of our Oaxacan adventure.

Golden Beet Hash

Holy cow... has it really been almost a month since my last post? March has been one of those months where I woke up on the 31st and yelled, "Oh, shit, tomorrow's APRIL?!"

It's been a crazy month, bookended by D.'s sister's wedding and a wedding-planning weekend for our own. In the middle, our friend J.T. broke the news that she was leaving San Diego, which ended up with road trip to her hometown of Santa Fe, N.M. Any time we've spent at home has been spent furiously organizing and cleaning. We've made huge donations to Goodwill and are now trying to sell various items on Craigslist.

D. and I are continuing to eat out less and we also need to diversify our recipes. Our goal is to look more towards the plethora of cooking magazines in the house (and their corresponding websites) for more inspiration. Saveur provided a recipe for hashed turnips, which worked for us because we had pork chops in the freezer. Then, I receive a call from D.:

D: Hm... what do turnips look like again? I think I might have purchased golden beets.

Me (somewhat quizzically): Well, they're white with the purple-ish tops. Golden beets look like... um, beets. But they're yellow.

D (somewhat defensively): Damn. Maybe Henry's shouldn't put golden beets under the "turnips" sign.

So, we ended up with golden beet hash. D. makes a great hash and his note is that, if using beets, they need a much longer cooking time. Approximately 1 hour, so plan for that. He also omitted the parsley because we both have an aversion to it.

D.'s I-don't-know-what-a-turnip-looks-like Golden Beet Hash
(adapted from Saveur's Hashed Turnips)

3 1/2 lbs. golden beets, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 6-oz. boneless pork chop, cut into 1/4" cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper, to taste
1 large onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Place turnips in a large bowl and cover with water; set aside. Heat oil in a 12" skillet over medium-high heat. Season pork with salt and pepper to taste and add to skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, 5 minutes. Add onions and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, drain turnips in a colander and pat dry with paper towels. Add turnips, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and butter to skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally and scraping bottom of skillet with a wooden spoon until turnips soften and lightly brown, about 15 minutes. Stir in heavy cream, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until turnips can be easily mashed with a fork, about 60 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

February was a month for traveling...

We just took a road trip to Berkeley for D.'s sister's gorgeous wedding. On the way, this was my breakfast.

I think I just heard my personal trainer scream in anguish. Hey, we did leave at 4am and I needed serious calories and caffeine. Like Jack and Elisa, I think the McFlurry is an amazing dessert. It makes a pretty good breakfast, along with a McD's hash brown disk, and coffee from Peet's.

The lesson, y'all: Chains make good traveling food.

Before I dive into the wedding (we made some of the cakes!), let me leave a hint of our first February adventure.

More to come soon!

Las Vegas: Bouchon, Part Deux

D. and I went to Vegas for the weekend of New Year's Day and decided we would dine at Bouchon again. With all of the dining options in Vegas, we could have tried tons of new places, but we wanted to revisit the restaurant where we celebrated our engagement. Sentimental? Sure, but let us not forget that the food was excellent.

The ambiance was perfect, service was excellent, and the food was great. I'd have to say it wasn't as memorable as last time, but it was still incredible. We started with the beignets de brandade de morue, which were fried balls (beignets) of a puree of salt cod, salt, and milk (brandade). Each beignet was served on a little piece of tomato confit and topped with crispy fried sage. Fried fish will never be better than this.

We knew our meal would be heavy, so we ordered frisee aux lardons et oeuf poche, or a salad of frisee, bacon pieces, and a poached egg.

This was simple, but extremely flavorful. Topped with a bacon sherry vinaigrette and a slice of toasted brioche, it was a perfect combination of hearty and refreshing. I've been meaning to duplicate this at home, but haven't had a chance to. If you don't like vegetables, pieces of bacon and a dressing made of bacon fat should help them go down easily.

For entrees, we both admit to wanting to duplicate our previous experience. D. had the steak frites again, which came with an enormous pile of perfectly fried frites. I ordered the special, which was a lot like my entree from the first visit. Beautifully braised pork shank on top of chard, butternut squash puree, and fried polenta sticks.

The pork was falling off the bone and very rich, but the whole dish lacked depth. Not a lot of strong flavors outside of the meat itself. It could have been a seasoning issue.

I had a massive craving for chocolate that night, so we ordered chocolate mousse. It arrived with a side of "cats' tongues", crisp butter cookies that paired perfectly with the mousse. At $8, I thought it was really overpriced, but that became even more obvious when I realized that the recipes for the mousse and the cookies were available in the Bouchon cookbook. A month later, I made a huge bowl of the mousse for less than $8.

Overall, a good visit. We'd definitely visit again... although we might diversify from pork and beef.

Bouchon
Venetian Resort, Venezia Tower Ste 10101
3355 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89109