If you were leaving for a week long trip to a remote Costa Rican beach, what essentials would you bring? Sunscreen? Swimsuit? Thai curry paste? Okay, so maybe that last one isn’t exactly what most people would consider essential for a tropical vacation, but, knowing that I get a little nutty if I don’t get my Thai food fix in once a week, I decided to pack a small jar of curry paste with me. Just in case.

After dining out at Sol y Mar our first few nights in Zancudo, we decided to spend an evening in. A homemade Thai dinner was definitely in order! I initially had very lofty goals for my Thai curry. Wild coconuts were falling from the trees all around us in Zancudo (you seriously had to watch your head.) This got me thinking, why not make my Thai curry with fresh coconut milk? I had read previously how to prepare coconut milk from scratch in Cracking the Coconut. Now, I was finally in a position to do so. Well…it didn’t really work as I had hoped. After spending the better part of the afternoon removing a coconut from its outer pod, I sliced my thumb open while trying to poke holes in the eyes to get at the juice. Robert felt bad and offered to help, but I was feeling too defeated to continue with the project. Luckily, the small grocery store in Zancudo sells canned coconut milk.

To get the veggies I needed for my curry, I had to wait for Willy to come to town. Willy is the owner of a fruit and vegetable truck and he comes by every few days. If you need something from him, you put out the “Willy Si” sign that belongs to your cabin and then he’ll know to stop for you. All of the Willy signs are handmade and unique so it was really fun to walk down the road on a Willy day and look at them all. Willy has a huge variety of produce available: lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, mangoes, cantaloupe, delicious pineapple. Even apples, which, being from Washington State, I had to politely decline. Willy also sells cheeses and wine. For my curry, I bought some broccoli and the mystery root vegetable pictured above. I’m guessing it is some variety of taro or yuca.

Now that I had my coconut milk and my veggies, it was time to start cooking. Cooking in the cabina was much easier than I expected. A mere twenty minutes after I started, my dinner was complete! I served my curry over rice with chunks of fresh pineapple on the side. The mystery root was okay. I was told that it was similar to a sweet potato, but I thought it tasted more like a generic starch. Not bad, but not spectacular. The curry as a whole, however, was really good. As much as I love jasmine rice, I really liked the way that the curry went with the Latin American rice that we had. It turned really creamy, almost like a Thai risotto. Robert and I ate our delicious Thai dinner on the porch of our cabina while watching the sun set over the Osa Peninsula. It was a perfect evening!

As you’re supposed to when you’re on vacation, Robert and I did a fair amount of dining out while we were in Costa Rica. Although Zancudo, the town we stayed in, has a lot of restaurants for its size, the heat and humidity basically limited our dining options to whatever was within 5 minutes walking distance from our cabina. Fortunately for us, this included what is widely regarded as the best bar and restaurant in Zancudo: Sol y Mar. We pretty much ate there every day.

Sol y Mar is owned and operated by Rick and Lori from California, and they have done a wonderful job with the place. There is always something fun happening at Sol y Mar. On Saturdays, they host a volleyball tournament, and Sundays, it’s horseshoes. They have a lively BBQ night twice a week and, the week we were leaving, they were planning to throw a big Mardi Gras party. One night, Robert and I sat at the bar with a bunch of people and watched the Costa Rican soccer team beat El Salvador in a tournament to qualify for the Gold Cup (I have since learned that Costa Rica went on to win the Central American crown in this tournament. Hey, didn’t Greece win the 2005 Euro Basketball championship after we had visited there? I’m starting to notice a trend here. If any other countries out there would like to sponsor a trip for us in the hopes of capitalizing on our luck, please let me know.)

Sol y Mar has a great location about 50 meters from the beach. The restaurant is open to the outdoors, covered only by a palm frond roof. This offers a nice, nearly 360 degree view of the surrounding landscape from any table. More importantly, it allows the all to critical breeze to come through. As with everything else in Zancudo, the ambiance at Sol y Mar is incredibly laid-back. Most of the people that hang out there are what Robert and I coined as the “Steely Dan” types: extremely mellow, aging, longish-haired dudes, usually sandaled and shirtless (or in various tropical print shirts.) But, don’t let that scare you off. Plenty of native Costa Ricans and tourists frequent the place as well creating a very friendly, community atmosphere. Everyone gets to know each other so, after a while, it becomes hard to tell the tourists from the residents.

Despite the fact that Zancudo is in a pretty remote location, Sol y Mar boasts an incredible variety of menu options. Lori is a self-proclaimed foodie, and it certainly shows. The menu at Sol y Mar is huge, and there is an equally large number of specials available each night. The fish specials are particularly great. On BBQ night, I had a really delicious grilled fillet of mahi mahi. It was tender and juicy and smoky from the grill. Another night, I bravely ordered the whole fish special (for more on my whole fish saga, click here.) It was deep fried and wonderful (especially topped with Willie’s homemade picante sauce, which is brought to the table at each meal in a bucket along with several other hot sauces.) I devoured every last bit. Breakfasts at Sol y Mar are also great. The breakfast menu features standard American fare as well as huevos rancheros, gallo pinto, and an enormous breakfast burrito. Fresh tropical juices are available as is a fantastic orange, banana and yogurt smoothie. Even if you aren’t hungry, Sol y Mar is a great place to go if you are in need of a cold drink or just want to catch up on the latest local gossip.

Robert and I just got back from a fabulous trip to Costa Rica! 9 full days of relaxing in the sun. What could possibly be better than that, you ask? Okay, how about 9 full days of sun plus an abundance of exotic animals! I love animals of all kinds and I certainly got my fill in Costa Rica. During our trip, we saw four types of monkeys, a caiman, crocodiles, two- and three-toed sloths, red-tailed squirrels, iguanas, lizards, tons of birds, crabs everywhere, exotic fish, a bright yellow sea snake, a baby boa constrictor, and dolphins, which swam right up to our boat. Although most of our time was spent simply relaxing on the porch of our cabin, we did do many fun activities in Costa Rica, several of which I had never done before. We took a couple of scenic trips in a Cessna airplane which was really fun (after I got over my initial fears.) We took several boat trips, and did some snorkeling and a ton of swimming. One day, we visited a really neat animal sanctuary in the remote jungle, Santuario Silvestre de Osa, where we saw lots of monkeys and some other animals. The goal of the sanctuary is to rehabilitate rescued animals so that they can be safely released into the wild (and for those that can’t be released, well, they get to enjoy a happy and long life in the beautiful sanctuary.) One of the best moments of the trip for me was when Lulu, a friendly howler monkey at the sanctuary, crawled up my leg! Perhaps the most exciting thing that we did was the Sarapiqui Canopy Tour. This tour included a nice drive through the misty Braulio Carrillo National Park, a boat trip up the Sarapiqui River, where we saw lots of monkeys, a short horseback ride and then a completely exhilarating canopy tour. For the canopy tour, you are put into a harness that gets hooked up to cables high up in the forest. From there, you are sent hurtling through the jungle. It was a blast!

So, you are probably wondering how the food was in Costa Rica. In short, the food was great! This was a pleasant surprise because everything that I had read prior to the trip indicated that Costa Rican food was very limited and plain, consisting mainly of gallo pinto (beans and rice), some meat and fish, and fruit. While I did have gallo pinto on several occasions (and it was very good), we weren’t really in a position where we had to eat traditional Costa Rican food every day. The bulk of of our trip was spent in Zancudo, a very small, laid-back town that is home to about 300 native Costa Ricans and a significant population of American, Australian and European transplants. This mix of people results in a wider variety of restaurants and foods available. In fact, the restaurant that we went to most days is run by a couple from California and, although their menu features a few traditional Costa Rican items, they also offer a huge number of really interesting, non-Costa Rican seafood, meat and vegetarian options. Zancudo is known for its sportsfishing so I made a point of eating lots of seafood during the trip. We did have a really yummy Costa Rican style meal during the canopy tour: fresh corn tortillas, rice, black beans, stewed potatoes, chayote squash, salad, fried bobo fish (which our tour guide, Victor, had caught during our trip up the river – can’t get much fresher than that!) For dessert that day, we had plantains in sugar cane.

We ate out for most of our meals, but I also did a little bit of cooking. Our cabin was equipped with a small gas range and just enough utensils to allow me to produce a some really good food. It was pretty hot in Zancudo so I kept my meals simple. Eggs, potatoes, fruit and delicious Costa Rican coffee were my standard breakfast. We had some really good tropical fruit smoothies (whoever thought of installing blenders in the cabins was a genius!) I made fideos one night using actual Latin American fideos noodles instead of cheater capellini like I normally do. Served with chunks of pineapple and what I like to refer to as my “tropical salad” (lettuce, carrot and hearts of palm in a lime vinaigrette), it was just like a meal I would have made at home. Although, eating on the porch of our cabin at sunset overlooking the ocean made me feel worlds away from home. I’ll have more stories from the trip and a few restaurant reviews later on so stay tuned!

Care to know what chef Tony Bourdain thinks of the current “stars” of the Food Network? Check out his post on ruhlman.com. His prose is hilarious, as always. And, I have to say, I pretty much agree with him on every point.

I decided to challenge myself this winesday by doing Indian food. Because of its bold, oftentimes spicy flavors, Indian food is notorious for being difficult to pair with wine. There are, however, a few general guidelines that you can follow when pairing wines with spicy foods. Most experts agree that wines with a bit of sweetness work well; sweeter wines are less likely to be overwhelmed by spicy food than wines with more subtle qualities. You should also avoid high-alcohol wines as the extra alcohol will only intensify the burn of spicy foods. Finally, it is best to go with a fruity wine (rather than an earthy or oaky wine.) Wines with tropical fruit flavors are usually a good bet with Indian food. Gewürztraminer, with its typically sweet, floral and spicy qualities, is the most common wine paired with Indian food, but,
using the guidelines above, you can find many other wines that work well too.

During the course of these winesdays, I feel that I have shamefully been neglecting wines from my home state. To remedy this, I decided to seek out a Washington State wine for this week’s winesday, specifically, a slightly sweet riesling. I chose Columbia Winery’s 2005 Cellarmaster’s Riesling mostly because the label said “serve with spicy food” (hey, why make it harder than it has to be, right?) Columbia winery is Washington’s first premium winery. Originally known as Associated Vintners, the winery was created in 1962 by ten friends, many of them professors at University of Washington. As with many great success stories, they first set up shop in their basements. Today, Columbia winery produces 170,000 cases of wine each year and many of their wines have won top awards.

For dinner, I chose to make Rechad Fish from Flavors of India by Madhur Jaffrey. This dish comes from Goa, a coastal state and former Portuguese colony in India. According to Jaffrey, nearly every household in Goa has a jar of Rechad Masala sitting on the shelf. Rechad Masala is a bright red paste made from chilies, spices, garlic, ginger and vinegar. It is most commonly used as a stuffing for fish (Rechad comes from the Portuguese “Recheado” which means “to stuff”.) In Jaffrey’s recipe, whole pomfret are stuffed with a small amount of the paste, seared in a skillet and then finished in the oven. A couple of squeezes of lemon or lime finishes the dish. I couldn’t find pomfret so I picked up a couple of small snappers at the fish market. I served boiled baby potatoes and a Goan cabbage salad on the side. The fish was spicy. Really spicy. But, it also had a very interesting flavor due to the inclusion of cardomom, cinnamon and clove in the paste. The wine was pretty heavy on the apricot; it was sweet but not cloyingly so. I thought it went very well with the food.

This is only my second time cooking whole fish. Last time, I got a little freaked out, especially when, during cooking, a row of teeth began to slowly emerge from the fish’s mouth. This time, when the fishmonger asked if I would like the heads removed, I quickly said yes. Then, I felt bad. I really don’t want to be one of those people that always buys their food pre-sliced and pre-packaged and has no idea where it actually comes from. I like buying beets covered in dirt with the tops still attached. I don’t mind having to wash my own spinach. But, when it comes to whole fish, I’m not as open minded as I would like to be. I guess that is kind of at odds with my desire to learn to fish one day! I’m going to keep trying, though. Baby steps. Next time, I’m leaving the head on and embracing the teeth for what they are. I’ll be alright…as long as I don’t look too hard at the clouded over eyeballs – gross!

After a slow start, I happy to say that I am now doing very well with my New Year’s resolution to dine in a wider variety of restaurants. It’s been nearly a month since Robert and I have been to our regular neighborhood pub! This weekend, we returned to two great places: Dinette and Panos Kleftiko. We had previously been to each of these restaurants only once, and, although I have written about both restaurants before, the food was good enough that I felt a brief update on each was warranted.

On Friday night, we met up with friends for dinner at Dinette. Dinette, if you remember from my last post, is a very charming Capitol Hill restaurant with a focus on European comfort foods and…toast! Yes, they have an entire section of the menu that is devoted to toast (think bruschetta, not plain old breakfast toast.) We chose three toasts for the table to share: smoked salmon with herbed mascarpone, rabbit rillets with apple and celery root slaw, and gorgonzola dulce with walnuts and balsamic glaze. For my dinner, I ordered the ricotta gnocchi in broth with squash, leeks and spinach. This dish is available in two sizes; I went with the smaller size, predicting, correctly, that what they call a small would be what I consider an appropriate portion size. The gnocchi were really light and delicious, and the accompanying broth was equally tasty. Garlicky and comforting, just what I was in the mood for. Robert ordered one of the nightly specials: lamb shepherd’s pie topped with potato and celery root puree. Heather ordered a butter lettuce salad with watermelon radishes and preserved lemon dressing, another dish offered in two sizes. She ordered the larger size, since it was to be her entree, and it was possibly the biggest plate of greens I have ever seen. Todd and David shared another one of the specials: “Pork for Two” (it actually had a much better-sounding, French name but I can’t remember what it was.) This dish consisted of Savoy cabbage parcels filled with pork, served in a light tomato sauce with polenta on the side. It looked really yummy. For dessert, we all split the flourless chocolate cake and the Maker’s Mark bananas foster. The food and the service were both excellent. Dinette is quickly becoming one of my neighborhood favorites. Perhaps I will have to add a sixth restaurant to my rotation. To top off the evening, we swung by Chapel for fancy cocktails.

On Saturday, in celebration of a couple of winter birthdays, my family went out to Panos Kleftiko, a tiny Greek tavern on lower Queen Anne Hill. Actually, Panos is not quite as tiny as it once was; they just added a second room so there is now twice the seating! This worked out well for us since it fills up pretty quickly and we were a large group of seven (they don’t accept reservations.) We ordered many of the same appetizers as I had during my last visit: pitas, tzatziki, kopanisti, marinated octopus and Greek sausages. The kopanisti is my favorite. I have a recipe for it, but mine never turns out as good as the one at Panos. Robert and I both had an Athenian salad for our dinner which is like a traditional Greek salad except that it has lettuce and the feta cheese is crumbled rather than sliced. My mom and sister both had the bread salad which was very good. The bread wasn’t soggy nor was it “tear your mouth to shreds” crunchy. My dad, brother and brother-in-law had a prawn entree, a lamb entree and a stuffed chicken entree respectively. I can’t remember the specifics about each but they looked good. The entrees all come with a salad, cooked carrots and a very small side of rice. Our wine choice for the evening was Naoussa Boutari, a favorite of my mom and dad’s. Boutari is one of the most famous wineries in Greece. The Naoussa Boutari wine is based on the indigenous xinomavro (“acid black”) grape. It is described as being a full bodied wine, but I thought it was somewhere more between light and medium bodied. As with most of the Greek wines I’ve tried, it went wonderfully with the food. All of the food at Panos, while a bit heavy on the oil, is very tasty. If you don’t like a lot of garlic, however, you might want to head over to Sushiland next door; Panos definitely doesn’t skimp on the garlic!

I usually have my winesdays planned out a few days in advance, but, earlier this week, I was finding myself at a loss as to what to make. There wasn’t any specific food that I was craving nor was there a particular wine that I had been dying to try. This happens to me occasionally as I suspect it does to everyone. Usually when I experience this type of mental block, Robert is quick to suggest Tuna Noodle Casserole (his favorite) followed by Pasta with Tuna and Olives. This time he also threw Pasta Puttanesca into the mix. As soon as he said it, I knew that was what I had to make. I immediately began craving spicy pasta and thinking about what wines I could pair it with. I love it when it suddenly clicks like that! In acknowledgment of Robert’s preoccupation with pasta-tuna combinations, I decided to try a recipe from Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen cookbook, Pasta Puttanesca with Charred Ahi Tuna.

I headed down to DeLaurenti for wine and ingredients. Since I was shopping at an upscale Italian deli rather than the plain old grocery store, I decided to go with a fancy pasta. I picked up a package of Rustichella d’Abruzzo Chitarra. Chitarra is like spaghetti but with a neat square diameter. I normally use Barilla pasta. It’s cheap, easy to find and holds up really well (it never gets gummy.) At three times the cost, I was curious to see if the Rustichella pasta was really that much better than the Barilla.

In the recipe notes, Tom Douglas recommends pairing his Pasta Puttanesca with an Italian white wine or, “for a real dare,” he says to try a Chianti. I took his dare one step further and bought a heavier red: Vallevo 2004 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is typically a rich, robust and fruity yet soft-textured wine. It is made entirely from the montepulciano grape.

I make my own version of Pasta Puttanesca all the time, so I was excited to try a different recipe. Tom’s recipe calls for lemon zest and lemon juice whereas mine calls for red wine vinegar. Other than that, and the fact that he serves his with tuna, the two recipes are pretty much identical. Tomatoes, olives, capers, anchovies, chilies and lots of garlic. The tuna in his recipe is served quite rare. You basically just sear it for a minute per side. Then you slice it thinly and serve the slices over the pasta.

As expected, the Rustichella pasta cooked up nicely. It was much chewier and heartier than I am used to, and it definitely held the puttanesca sauce well, one of the oft-touted benefits of artisan pastas (but, at $2 per pound, I think I’ll probably stick with Barilla.) I really enjoyed the combination of the tuna and the spicy sauce. The lemon really brightened up the entire dish.

The wine was also delicious. Although it was a heavier wine, the spicy & salty flavors of the sauce were not overwhelmed by it. I think the extra chewy texture of the pasta also helped make the dish able to stand up to a hearty wine. By the way, did anyone catch that the wine and the pasta I bought are both from Abruzzo? I didn’t plan that. I didn’t even make the connection myself until after dinner. No wonder they went well together!