light and latin
ABUELO RUM and Luis Garizábalo meet in Panamanian Gala
ABUELO RUM
and
Thanks to Luis Garizábalo, we had the option of tasting the four rums in glass as well as in wooden containers as is traditionally used in the Colombian Caribbean hometown of mine, Barranquilla.
It is amazing how Colombian artisans can make almost anything you want, perfectly.
With time and patience they work magic with their hands. Love keeps them doing their favorite pieces. They are small, sometimes overlooked but this one time they made a very special occasion one of high glamour the perfect moment.
The delicious Panamanian Rums we tasted were the following. We include the Abuelo 7 years, with which we prepared ABUELO LIBRE, the newest in rum drinks inPanama.
Three rum curators from RON ABUELO, from VARELA Rums in Panama gave the initial taste and aromas they configure in production.
ABUELO NAPOLEON, is part of a new 15 YEARS finish Collection RUM, soon to be out in the market. Brown rum distilled from molasses. Aged 15 Cognac barrels flown in from France. New to the market in 2014, this 15 year old rum is the latest rum bottled under the Abuelo label. Almond, buttery notes with complex tannic flavors are amazing and new to the RUM palates.
NAPOLEÓN:Nose: Aromas of new leather, buttery and dry notesPalate: Slight almond and complex tannic flavors
My daughter´s wedding food by Cuquita Arias in Panamá
Hello again from Pachi the Colombian Cook
This time I write about the wonderful woman who was able to read my mind and create with me the most spectacular sit down dinner for my daughter´s wedding.
Pachi
DR CLYDE METHOD and PACHI
ENTREVISTA : Patricia McCausland y su libro Cómetelo Flaca – Revista Din…
COMETELO FLACA LA SOLUCION A LA COCINA ESTA NAVIDAD
EBOOK EN iTunes y en AMAZON KindleKINDLE EDITION
WHAT MAKES US HUMAN…WE COOK!
It was amazing to receive this email from Dr. Clyde Wilson this morning…
Dr. CLyde and I are writing a book for all of you who want to increase your metabolic rate. As I was writing my prologue I included this paragraph:
“ Humans have fed themselves for ever; even when there were no fancy stores, ovens, knives and cutting boards. Breads and pasta were prepared by civilizations way back. Many coats of arms show fruits and vegetables overflowing from cornucopias. We are innately good cooks; we know what we like; we are attracted to certain types of flavor, sweet, sour, salty and tart. Maybe a mix of all of them is best as it has been shown with the sixth sense, Umami. So lets go ahead and mix, mix ingredients to prepare foods that we think we might like. Lets feel free to add spices and herbs, peppers and oils. Lets go into the kitchen and grab whatever we have found interesting in the market, that beautiful food that was in season, and cut it up, add some quality seasonings, cook it or try it raw, laugh and live the bounty this world has given us for our lifetime. Before any specific cooking book was written, humans found a way to cook in the best possible way for their own palates. Lets do that!”
Will seasoning chicken beat the battle against Obesity?
There are many battles to be fought when obesity comes to the table, but, there is one good and inexpensive food whose image could be easily changed, and beat. CHICKEN!
People view chicken as an unchallenged food, not only because it is inexpensive, but because it is usually very bland. Chicken pieces that are sold fresh or frozen are mainly breasts. Wing, Drumsticks chops and tenderloin or filets are rarely bought for home cooking. Most of the chicken legs are exported to third world countries and sold for pennies, filets or tenderloins are now starting to be sold on their own but are not found everywhere. On the other hand in many countries, chicken is regarded as a very expensive food even though it still has no pzazzz. It is not chic to serve chicken at any social event.
In my opinion,
chicken could be the savior of many family meals, at a very low cost and with almost no cooking skill needed. Chicken on its own has no characteristic flavor; some people say the chicken they buy tastes like plastic, others say it tastes bland, and even the ones that buy the free range and unprocessed highest quality chicken say it can be ¨just chicken¨.
Chicken can be exciting, colorful, delicious…think of a piece of herb roasted chicken, a tandoori or a Latin onion and tomato smothered one. (translate the page on the top right hand)
The first thing that needs to be done is to wash chicken pieces in order to remove some of the flavors brought about different types of packaging. Processed, frozen and plastic bagged plain skinless chicken pieces can smell, taste and look like plastic. You can immediately tell when a restaurant uses processed skinless breasts the minute you see them. Some can look like the pieces nutritionists use to show patients portion sizes. Some are all identical, look cloned, which feels like being invited to eat at the Jetsons (the TV show from the 90’s or to a TV dinner from the 70″S), to a person who is used to eating natural chicken pieces. Organic, unprocessed chicken needs to be washed and patted dry too.
The second and most important flavor defining step is to season the chicken. Chicken placed in a pan with salt and pepper tastes like salt and pepper. Even if you use the best oil to cook it. There are many ways to season chicken that will make you fall in love with it again. This means no excess pepper, no excess spice
and flavors that can come through when eating chicken. Flavors that are sensual, make you feel, smell, touch and taste a delicious food that you used to eat many years ago. It is not necessary for chicken to be organic, though I’d rather eat the organic ones, but regular supermarket whole chickens can be prepared in less that 3 minutes, refrigerated for the evening or for the next day. Place them on a zipper bag and simple bake the whole bird on a cheap baking pan, even a disposable one and enjoy a marvelous dinner for 4. Smaller pieces can be seasoned for 20 to 30 minutes or overnight too. Season your weekly portions and freeze them; then defrost them under running water or refrigerated during the day.
When chicken is seasoned it needs no sauce to go with it, it is delicious on its own. Serve it with a simple green salad, a baked potato and your choice of vegetable. Make the chicken be the centerpiece of your dinner and give your family the protein it needs. Leave them satisfied with a delicious meal and sit comfortably with them on the table.
Baking chicken is the best way to cook it without having to check on it. The same holds for chicken pieces and even chicken wings. Whole chicken and pieces with skin, which I cook with all the time, even if I discard the cooked skin, should be seasoned beneath the skin. If any poultry is seasoned on the skin, it will loose all its taste once the skin is gone. Also is the seasoning is placed over the skin, the chicken meat will not be seasoned at all. This is a simple TIP for all of us with palates that love tasty delicious food!
A Grand Simple Dinner for Family and Friends
Last night I had people over and wanted to give them an easy all baked delicious dinner. Early on I seasoned two whole chickens with some yogurt blended with herbs and pepper. Placed it into the birds´skin and left them refrigerated all day. At 5 p.m. when I came back I took them out of the fridge with 12 Roma tomatoes, some sprigs of thyme I had frozen, a can of Spanish Artichoke hearts in olive oil and brown rice.
For starters I turned the oven, a gas range, on at 300F while I cut the tomatoes in half. Placed them on an olive oil sprayed baking pan and sprinkled them with salt, pepper, olive oil and placed the sprigs of thyme over them. Placed them in the oven and prepared the rice. My whole grain brown rice is prepared identically as my white rice, with twice the water than rice, only I cover it, place it in low immediately after the water comes to a boil and leave it unopened for 50 minutes. Then it is perfectly open and delicious. By then the chicken pan was room temperature, so I sprinkled some good quality salt and I placed them in the oven. I also added red wine to the pan to cover all the surface with about 1/8 of an inch.
Two hours later I had two whole chickens baked and the tomatoes were deliciously sweet and aromatic. I covered the chickens with foil for 5 minutes while I served the table. the tomatoes went into a platter and immediately I placed the drained artichoke hearts on the baking pan where the tomatoes had been cooked, swirled the pan and placed them bake in the oven with the heat now increased to 400.
I served the rice with a tablespoon of picadillo or Latin Salsa, the wine roasted tomato halves with a mozzarella cut into pieces
, the chickens and removed the artichoke hearts from the oven and placed them onto a small serving dish.
Voilá a delicious meal all baked, no stress, healthy and aromatic, sweet, delicious, savory and one where we could all sit at the table together.
Best wishes cooking for friends and family.
Pachi
Passion for Coffee KINDLE ed in Spanish
PASION por el CAFE
Passion for Coffee
Paixao pelo Café
All the images in this book have been taken during the actual creative recipe experience. My original recipes from all my experience as a Pastry Chef and the pictures taken in the kitchen during a whole year while making each one of the recipes, the first trials and the final recipes as they were written. The images and the stories of the people in the coffee plantations are also true to life, real people with real names and true stories of their life around the amazing life of the highest quality grade coffee in the world. The recipes of the sweet chapters are all classical with some of my own creations and they are as they should be prepared with the highest quality ingredients, such as eggs, real butter, cream, 70% or higher grade chocolate etc. The recipes on the Savory chapters, salads, main dishes, are all very light and extremely easy to prepare.
Just this past Wednesday I was at a Whole Foods store in Cambridge, Massachusetts and bought a coffee syrup which you can use if you prefer to use an all ready, natural, high quality coffee syrup in the recipes.
The freeze dried coffee I used is made in Colombia at an amazing plant in the middle of the coffee growing regions of Chinchiná, Caldas in Colombia. Its brand name is Buendía but you might find it under many names, produced in Colombia.
Enjoy an amazing array of new flavors and textures all infused with the magnificent aroma, taste and nutritional qualities of the great red ben, Coffee.
Menus of Change 2013 Summit, Harvard and CIA
Menus of Change is the democratic way of solving this unstoppable problem. It is a dramatic change towards the positive in the new era we are entering. Obesity and all of its terrible consequences are issues to be taken very seriously as this Summit has shown. The US exports its solutions for feeding humanity both socially, as aid, and emotionally, as it exports the American dream. Sometimes this can perfect, as it has been, the most humane way to help third World countries abolish famine and disease. At its worst, citizens from other countries follow the excesses and bad habits that come from learning to produce and consume food and others, (i.e. serving and shipping containers, plastic bags, soda cans, etc.) in excess. Unhealthy chains of restaurants use methods to produce, pack and store foods for longer shelf life and more intense flavor, with the use of artificial colors, chemicals, pesticides and GMOs. As countries grow, so does their need to be like Americans and obesity rates grow, i.e. China. Equally, as immigrants arrive in the US their weights increase; second generation Americans are just as obese or heavier than the average American.
The Cookbooks of the FUTURE
The Cookbooks of the FUTURE
With all the Internet access of free recipes, people believe cookbooks will disappear.
Relax, this will not happen, as it did not happen to radio went television showed up. We will want printed material, at least for a couple of generations. There is nothing like walking into a bookstore, sitting there, drinking some coffee and looking through a book. It may be, if the book is very good, that is, has important, long living information, that we might buy both the printed and the e-book.
There are two kinds of cookbook readers. Those that like to look at the images, and get ideas and go ahead and cook something like it someday. Then there is a second group that buys the books to use them in the kitchen and actually do the recipes as they are written in the book. What will each choose? I could guess that the ones that actually cook, might use the e’format if they don´t care about taking the tablet to the kitchen and letting flour and eggs near it. Then again, the ones that like to look at the books roughly and keep them, as a future reference might want to hold to the written format, just because the e’book becomes a file. How long will these files last? Will the format change? Will we be able to read the books 10 years, 20 years from now?
Or will e’books change as music formats did with time; reels, cassettes, cd´s, dvd´s and mp3´s.
One thing is for sure going to happen. Content is going to change. Young readers want to do different things with cookbooks. Some want nothing to do with them, others want to discover what the mystery is, some only have them as decoration … we need to find out what kind of content and format they want. There will definitely be shrinkage of the amount of topics. This might actually be good for the industry, to sell more books from fewer authors. Not fair to many, but we must adapt. Quick cooking guides, there are millions; in print, on the web, and in free media. Companies selling products will be ones to gear customers towards written formats as they are ones that can keep using cookbooks as a part of their marketing and sales. I think people want to touch things that are given to them and product makers can give them away or sell them one on one.
Let us see what happens, but the fact that companies keep 30% of books on the Internet is not at all bad. Most writers only get a very small percentage of sales anyways. Who gets the money might be different depending on product innovations we might not even think of today. i.e. ipod!
Some publishers, owning book clubs have the biggest sales and can jump from paper to electronic sales, and have done so, but they must be very creative.
Patricia McCausland-Gallo is a nutritionist, pastry chef, teacher, and food writer born in the Caribbean town of Barranquilla, Colombia. She has a B.S. in Foods and Nutrition from Louisiana State University, attended a School for Retort Operations, and completed courses of instruction prescribed by the Food and Drug Administration.