Leaving on a Jet Plan

It is very nearly time for me to go back to U.S and I feel like I just got started here. The two months really flew by, and just as I started to settle into a good work rhythm, I'm getting interrupted by a whole slew of traveling. It is probably pretty good timing though. I need an opportunity to stop and take stock of all the interviews I've done and decide what direction to take my research. I'm still unsure of what the central question of my thesis will be, and it is getting difficult to move forward without a very clear focus. I'll be spending a few days in Boston hopefully getting some feedback from friends and professors and preparing some grant proposals. Then, most notably, I get to go to japan for two weeks. This came about after applying for a travel grant to attend a short course on sustainable development through the university of Tokyo. The theme is sustainable forestry and regional development in Asia, which has only a general relation to the research that I am doing, and MIT was giving complete funding for one person to attend. I decided to apply even though it was a stretch, and am really glad I did, because I ended up getting funded. Mostly graduate students and some undergrads from all over Asia and the world will be attending. Many participants from Japan, Thailand, and Southeast Asia, and some from Europe and Australia. It should be a really amazing experience to meet and learn about sustainable development with people from all over. I am also excited to squeeze as much good eating into the the two weeks. There is a cultural show night (Natsu-Matsuri, in Japanese apparently), for which perhaps I will try to cook something typically american. I'm having a hard time deciding what, becuase I'm sure everyone the world over has had the most typical hamburgers, french fries, etc. I thought maybe something mexican would be good, but I bet I'd have to take the ingredients, and mexican always takes ridiculous amounts of work. I also don't know whether to perform something Paraguayan or something American (a folk song perhaps?). Japan has been one of my top culinary tourism fantasy destinations for a while now, and while the motive of the trip is not eating, I certainly don't plan on letting this opportunity slide. Let me know about any can't miss food destinations in Hokkaido or in or around Tokyo.

We have continued to eating well here, and I think we got our food budget a little better under control. Here have been our meals for the last couple weeks.


1. Spaghetti Capricciose with oyster mushrooms, sweet vermouth, and arrugula. We made this with some mushrooms we bought from the agroshopping. It was a Mario Battali recipe and was very good.


2. Spinach Salad with strawberries and toasted almonds. I made a dressing out of balsamic vinager and what I thought was honey, but turned out to be royal jelly. I don't really know what people use royal jelly for, but I don't think I'd put it into a dressing again. It has a stronger, molassesy and kind of funky flavor. I ended up cooking the dressing to try to get some of the raw flavor out of the "honey" and wilting the spinach with it. In the end it tasted good, but I think royal jelly is probably is better used to trigger the development of a queen than to dress a salad.



3. Mostaccioli with peas, ham, new potatoes and minted cream. Much like the corn, the peas here aren't sweet here. Even when they are fresh they are very starchy and need to be boiled for at least 20 minutes to eat.


4. Mushroom omelet with smoked provolone.


5. Watercress and potato soup with yogurt and chives. I've never cooked watercress before, but it was too cold to eat salad and tried it out in soup. It really was very delicious and refreshing.


6. Broccoli with toasted garlic and sesame.

7. The elusive mangosteen. A fruit that has eluded eager consumers of tropical fruit in the U.S. for nearly a century. Attempts to cultivate it in the U.S. have failed, and the first mangosteens to be imported legally into the U.S. arrived in early august, after attempts starting in 1925. I had always read about how delicious and coveted this fruit was, and I had the chance to taste it (imported from brazil) myself after noticing the strange fruit in my supermarket next to the chirimoya and figs (also strange delicious fruits). It really was remarkable. I don't know if it was worth the 82 year wait, but very sweet and flavorful with a very agreeable texture indeed. It would make a very elegant desert for a dinner party served with some sorbet and perhaps a splash cointreau.


8.Fakejoada. I made some approximated feijoada with sausages and a smoked pork chop. It was very good, but didn't really boil long enough to let the flavors develop entirely. The sausage was amazing though, with a strange and delicious melt-in-your-mouth quality. Tomorrow, I'm making the real thing with pork ribs and more of that sausage for a goodbye party with my family.


9. Sesame Beef with pea pods. The pea pods had sat in the fridge for about two weeks, but were still really sweet, and crunchy.


10. Grilled chicken with Tandoori spices. I made this during our grill fest in June, and thought it would make a nice alternative to the sunday chicken stew my tia silvia usually makes. Now we have access to this beautiful built-in grill in our yard whenever we want. I definitely plan on taking advantage of it. Everyone loved this, eating seconds and thirds. We spent the rest of this sunday playing Canasta with my cousins until late at night.


11. We had to make homemade coconut milk because, as close as we are to brazil, there is no prepared coconut milk for sale in our grocery store. I had never done this before, but it is simple enough and requires simply blending the broken up flesh with hot water, and straining it through some cloth.

12. We made some beef masaman curry with the coconut milk and a can of curry paste we brought with us. Its accompanied by some soy braised red cabbage.


13. Finally, a salad of fresh beans with fresh mozzarella and mustard vinaigrette. I started to cut up some tomatoes for a caprese salad, but just couldn't go through with it. They were all mealy and dry as tomatoes in winter a wont to be. I plan on gorging myself on heirlooms tomatoes during the few weeks I'll spend in the U.S.