“Roll With It”: Sushi-making in Atlanta

Atlanta: city of knotted highways, Braves baseball, and Gladys Knight and Ron’s Chicken & Waffles. It’s also the home of two close friends, and sandwiched between the sprawls of my lives in Buenos Aires and New York, it was an excellent weekend trip, and a little bit closer to home.

The sounds were close to home:

With that soundtrack and geography, the flavors were pretty close to home. Sauteed shrimp, lemon juice, and cheese grits form some of Charleston’s greatest hits.

On Monday, we mixed up our own “Atlanta Batch” of shrimp with a green pepper/oyster mushroom/shredded turnip medley.

My friends and I also made sushi. Did I say flavors close to home? Whoops.

Salmon/mango/avocado urimaki (rice on the outside)

I have only rolled once, but Sean & Christine have their own set and make an evening out of it. Surprisingly, arranging uncooked ingredients in a beautiful way takes well over two hours. Between soaking cooked rice in vinegar (sushi translates to “spoiled rice”) to chopping up the minutia, making sushi is a time commitment; on a professional level, it takes years to master.

A few notes on prep, offered by my friend Sean:

1. The rolling mats, made of bamboo, should be flat on one side. Some cheaper pads are round dowels; due to the flat nori, it’s easier to roll.
2. Starch, generally unpleasant to clean out of both bowls and oxford shirts, is especially annoying with sushi mats. We covered our mats with cling-wrap.
3. Keep your hands wet all of the time. It makes the golf-ball sized rice balls easier to handle and shape.
4. While I definitely had favorite ingredients (mango, cream cheese, and FRIED CRUNCH), it’s best to keep texture in mind when building rolls. Plus, it’s an excuse to make and eat more sushi rolls.

After an hour of prep, it’s relaxing to see a table as crisp as edamame

We made over 12 rolls, with standards like crab w/ avocado and a spicy tuna, but there were a few Allez Cuisine rolls that definitely pulled inspiration from cooking television. In the plate to the upper right, our two experimental rolls reigned supreme. One featured crunchy caramelized onions with crab that we all agreed had a smoky flavor we’d never expect in a sushi roll. Right next to that roll and topped with green onions, is our lox roll. We had eaten and raved over how much we loved salmon lox earlier in the week, so like many great sushi creations, we just put our favorite food into it. The result had capers, smoked salmon, cream cheese, and a little bit of chopped green onion on the top. This might be our new favorite fusion creation.

Sushi is a home hobby that I learned to love in Atlanta, the most unlikely of homes.

Slow your roll.

Tags: bagel roll, cheese grits, cooking at home, experiments, lox, nori, rice, sushi, urimaki

S’Elmo

After two weeks, things are getting as smooth as a bossanova tune. I’m learning bus routes, which plazas have clowns, and how to order food.

While I may have had no idea which direction it was in when I arrived, San Telmo is a crucial part of bohemian Buenos Aires. Today was my first comfortable excursion to it.

While Recoleta may be the final burial ground for city dignitaries, San Telmo may be where the spirit of the city rests. Tango dances, guitar players, and craftsman selling feather earrings and colored signs pack the Plaza Dorrego, while the Mercado San Telmo is an indoor market selling enough of a variety to put any Wal-Mart to shame.

Tags: argentina, bondiola, buenos aires, el maipu, plaza dorrego, review, san telmo, traveling

Comenzando la vida

“Wow.”

That’s the best example of broken Spanish, and it’s the only thing I had to say after taking a bite of steak grilled on a parrilla.

Since Thursday, when I arrived in Buenos Aires, my conversations have been simple sentences with a loss for words. For the first two days, all of the students traveling abroad eat and travel together, meaning our checks aren’t split and our English is on more often than it should be. I moved into a house yesterday and am now constantly practicing the language, with my hosting “madre” filling in blanks I have about vocabulary and verbs tenses.

Tamara (mi madre): “Vas a decir ‘Estoy pensado en Español, estoy soñado en Español.’”

This will be a challenge, but one that’s really going to help.

With full immersion, I’m realizing just what exactly I’m faltering the most at. Unfortunately, for me, food criticism has a short list of words I know how to use in Spanish. During my first asado, I was literally speechless. In other food-related situations, I’m also at a loss for words.

Circumlocution of Carolinian Cornmeal

When I met my host family, los Guzmans, I presented a two-pound bag of grits as a gift for them. When I tried explaining the ground-up cornmeal to my aunt and uncle, both Milwaukee natives, they looked at me like I had nine heads. As it turns out, grits are even more difficult to talk about in Spanish. My explanation turned into a bunch of sound effects to explain pulverizing the corn and then cooking it in water. I don’t know the word for “simmer” in Spanish, but I’m going to have to find out if me and my host family are to have any of the Southern treat.

Mi primera asada

The drive out to the estancias de Pilar, where friends of my host family live, was about a 20 minute drive, during which I saw the stadium for River de la Plata’s futbol team.

The house is an antique take on a ranch that ought to sit next to Germany’s Black Forest facades. There’s a ton of land around it, and the sight of cows and horses was a welcoming sight after feeling a little diminutive in the 9th largest city in the world. In “el campo,” the stars are clear, the air is fresh, and the people tell stories. And I couldn’t be luckier.

I met some former journalists during the asada, including Sofi, who spent five years writing for Reader’s Digest. There was also a writer for a botanical magazine and the son of a famous cartoonist during the 1920s. He and I talked about how crucial reading Harry Potter is in my career plans as a children’s publisher.

Around 9 o’clock, Henrique, a good friend of the Guzmans, entered the house and saw me.

“Tommy,” he cheerfully proclaimed, “Veneca!”

I went outside to stand at a parilla, a type of Argentinian grill. In fact, a parrilla is an entire structure and would be quite an undertaking. Alejandro, my host father, and Henrique started describing both the grill and the history of Argentina’s culture.

Asados consist of grilled meat and whatever kind of vegetables are available. The meat is prepared in a brick hood with indirect fire. The grill can be elevated. What you do is create a fire to the left of the grill top. The fire will circulated heat through the hood, and using coals underneath, the meat gets cooked. Sprinkle a cut of beef with a ton of salt, toss it onto the clean grill top, and wait. That’s it.

Granted, this should be completed at 9 o’clock, in order to ensure you’ll be eating around 10:30. The meat cooks while everyone else shreds carrots, chats, and plays games with the kids. Manu, a two-year old, kept offering me potato chips.

Bruce Springsteen described the beginning to “Like A Rolling Stone” as being like a “snare shot that sounded like somebody’d kicked open the door to your mind.” With that bite of carne asada, it was like being brought back from the dead.

My first asado didn’t really seem too different from any other barbecue in the United States, which was a comforting experience on my first complete day of conversation.

Tags: argentina, asado, grilling, parrilla, steak, traveling abroad

Nos Vemos

I’m leaving for Argentina in two days. Two days. Spanish phrases are flying through my mind and I’m going over my packing piles over and over again, trying to get into that 50 pound limit. It hasn’t been the easiest. I’ve watched every single friend I have go back to their schools, back to their routines. They’re joining sororities and not sleeping for days. They’re getting new roommates and seeing candidates on campus. Meanwhile, I’m on this crazed drive to shove as much American culture in, between watching Star Wars and eating take-out Americanized Chinese food from China East.

American food seems to be the biggest item on my cultural docket.

Tags: american going away, argentina, bourdain, bridge, buenos aires, classic comfort food, eric schlosser, family, journey

The Hunger Games, On Hunger

“You can feel the rejuvenating effect that a good meal can bring on. The way it can make people kinder, funnier, more optimistic, and remind them that it’s not a mistake to go on living. It’s better than any medicine.”

I was surprised to find a profound statement about food in the final Hunger Games book of all places. Katniss Everdeen, the starving lead, has got a point.

Star Jennifer Lawrence also favors steaks to salad, so maybe the lead isn’t starving; instead, she’s bringing Philly Cheesesteaks to Panem.

Celebrity diets aside, I really like that line near the end of Mockingjay. It’s a topic I’ve talked about: how Mert’s hit the spot on a cold March night, or how nothing beats a cheap chocolate milkshake after a week of work as a camp counselor.

Like the chicken noodle soup I’m now having at Earth Fare, food can hit the spot and help alleviate problems. A lots been changing, and chicken noodle soup can be like an anchor, sort of like Katniss’ meals.

Though I won’t be home for the premiere, I’m pretty excited about the movie. Many extras came from the North Carolina area, so a lot of my friends are in the background or even in the trailer.

Tags: chicken noodle soup, comfort food, hunger games, jennifer lawrence, mockingjay

2011 in review

Helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Where Are You, Ronald McDonald?

Courtesy of Karl Johaentges

When was the last time you saw Ronald McDonald lurking on a bench? When was the last time you saw the borderline creepy clown on T.V.?

2011′s news discussed a mid-life crisis for the clown, a reality check for the over-the-hill mascot, whose looks aren’t clicking with kids. Born in 1963, “Ron the Don” seems a little dated. I’m not sure if the Pee-Wee Herman antics of The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald can help sell hamburgers to people who know they’re not healthy.

“We see this as a great opportunity to create a more meaningful relationship between Ronald and kids,” the corporation said of the mid-90s mini-series (Schlosser).

Ads from the 2000s takes the Don out of psychedelia and into sports & games.

The ubiquitous Playplace is absent from almost every new McDonald’s I’ve seen constructed in the last few years. The fast food empire that grew from self-service counters to an international franchise overnight seems to be secretly snubbing its target audience: kids.

With an average T.V. time of over 20 hours a week, children are a significant consumer of televised media (American Academy of Pediatrics). A shift away from reaching kids through familiar television characters marks a bold new direction for the company.

A visit to the website reveals hand-drawn graphics (with some parallels to Arcade Fire) and a strong focus on wholesome eating, proper sourcing, and starting off with breakfast.

Is the twilight of Ronald McDonald also marking a shift towards different eating? What kind of impact can this new direction have for other fast food media?

Tags: advertising, fast food media, mcdonalds, ronald mcdonald, target audience