THE GREAT DIM SUM QUEST

A long while back, when I discovered Chinese dim-sum, I took my sister to a restaurant in Washington DC so she could experience my new fave food. The really great part about dim sum is that it's served fresh, ideally from steam carts wheeled by chanting servers who'll pick out your choice - on a plate, in a small steamer, sometimes in a bowl - and bingo, a small helping of, say, shrimp in a rice paper wrapper (about the size of a small egg, usually three to a steamer), or shiu mai, which is a thin dough wrapper pleated around chopped chicken/scallop or, more often, ground pork or shrimp (these open-topped goodies are about an inch across and 1-1/2" high, again three to a steamer).  Pot stickers fried before your eyes, turnip cakes ditto; or congee (thick rice soup); noodles of course, or steamed broccoli or tiny clams in black bean sauce. There are literally hundreds of dim sum, many of them vegetarian, so that ho-hum factor is never going to be an issue. You'll probably never get to taste them all.
I believe the DC restaurant I took my sister to is no longer in business. But they deserved to go out of business; the dim sum were terrible. One of my favorites is barbequed pork bun, which is a delicious mound of chopped, saucy barbeque pork inside a fluffy rice flour dumpling the size of a tennis ball. Imagine my horror when their version appeared to be cheap white bread wrapped around Dinty Moore Stew! Other items were no better. My sister still rags on me about that disgusting meal.

So, right now, I am in San Francisco, on the trail of the ultimate dim sum.I'm polling friends who live here in Baghdad by the Bay, and am going to try as many places as possible. I've only got to one so far, and while it was relatively cheap it was also solidly mediocre. More later!
After ten days in Berkeley and San Francisco, I am still searching for dim sum experiences. Research pointed me to CITY VIEW RESTAURANT (top 2 photos from there) in the Financial District, where I and two friends had an excellent meal. The immaculately clean restaurant offers plenty of choices from both carts and hand-carried trays. The steamed spinach dumplings were divine. The BBQ pork buns had a lot of excellent filling but the enclosing dough was a bit gummy. I'd go back to the City View any time even if it did have white tablecloths and fabric napkins.
If you seek really cheap eats, and can do without ambiance, variety or a lack of grease, there are scores of small hole-in-the-wall take-out joints that most tourists wouldn't even register. I went to YOU'S DIM SUM on Stockton (walking from Union Square? Through the tunnel, then a block further on to You's; it's on the left, see 3rd photo). Three dim-sum of my choice: $1.60. I ate them with a plastic fork at a formica table. I spent an entire afternoon trying these places out and must say that price is the main thing. More later!
Alex and Aggie took us to The New Lantern Restaurant in the Mission district, and of all the places we ate, this one is probably the best, considering they serve dim sum until late at night. They're varied, cooked to order and they were delicious. I love it when good ingredients are used. Try THE NEW LANTERN!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

This quick little recipe is a modification of one developed by Marika and Abe, who don't travel much but sure know their food:

KUMQUAT/CRANBERRY SAUCE: Take a pint of washed kumquats and slice crosswise into 1/4" rounds; remove the centers (they pop right out, a lot quicker than trying to find the seeds) Put in a heavy saucepan with 1/4 c water and 1/2 c brown sugar. Simmer until almost tender (check to see it's still wet), about 10 minutes, then add 1/2 pound fresh cranberries (pick them overcarefully), and three cinnamon sticks. Continue to simmer until cranberries pop, about 6 minutes.  Can be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated, Serve with roast anything. Great on a cheese sandwich, with or without the turkey. And it's so pretty!

Kumquats are an underutilized fruit. It's the rind that is where the flavor and sweetness reside. They make a fine addition to stuffing, are beautiful candied, and look fabulous whole, pickled, in a jar, as a holiday gift.

EGYPTIAN EPIPHANY

This food awakening began in late October when I visited Egypt. Friends warned me that Egyptian food was, to be kind, unremarkable. I might even - gasp - go hungry! I was prepared to loose a few pounds, in return for immersing myself in 5000 years of long-studied history. I have been a Tut-ophile since my teens (somewhat less than 5000 years, thank you very much), and had prepared myself for the trip by reading a dozen or so books and guidebooks. I couldn't find an Egyptian cookbook, darn it.

With a long list of places to see, I flew to Egypt. Nothing prepares you, however, for the chaos that is Cairo. Nothing prepares you for the insane traffic, or the street-level smog. Nothing prepares you for the agenda-driven Cairenes, either: 'you are a tourist, therefore I will lie, exaggerate, and finagle until you are broke and lost and starving'. And nothing prepared me for the food, either.
This was a mega budget trip. Two months on the road can be expensive unless you really work at cheap. If anyone can work at cheap, it's me, and food was one of the two places to save (lodging the other, but I'll never tell you details of where I stayed). On Tallat Harb, not too far from the incomprehensibly grimy and underfunded Cairo Museum, is a small eatery called Felfla. A utilitarian storefront with very little seating, crammed with locals and backpackers of all ages, this place offers fabulous food for almost nothing. The uniformed staff was happy to help even a non-Arabic speaking tourist.Their vine leaves (a dozen for little more than a buck) were superb, their felafel, their baba ghanoush excellent.
But the dish that really got my attention is KOSHARI (accent on the first syllable ). This macaroni/sauce/ frizzled onion dish is just the thing to teach your 10-year old son, if he doesns't know a ladle from a lemon, how to cook. This will serve four to six depending on appetites.
Cook a mixture of macaroni: ditalini, elbows, even mini-penne. Leftover pasta is good here, too. Just nothing really big, and nothing long or heavy like ziti. When cooked, drain, return to pan and keep warm.
While the pasta cooks, make a tomato sauce NOT Italian style, but the inevitable sauteed chopped onion,

 garlic enough to deter a vampire, canned mini-dice or fresh tomatoes with a generous helping of chopped cilantro, salt and pepper to taste, and ground cumin. A small shake of cinnamon is good, too.

Slice a good-sized onion and fry it in peanut or other neutral oil until brown and crisp. I suppose you could use those things in a can, but I like to scratch cook.

Open a can of garbanzo beans (even my culinary hero Mark Bittman says it's okay to use them), add a couple of smushed cloves of garlic, a generous handful of chopped cilantro, and simmer until everything is ready.

In a shallow bowl, put a ladle of pasta. Top with a ladle or two of sauce. Top with a generous spoon of the hot garbanzos and an equally generous spoon of the fried onions. Sprinkle, for an upscale look, more chopped cilantro.

At Felfla, they offer two sauces, one nicely spicy. You could do that as well. This could become a family stand-by and - who knows? - your kid could go on to become the next Food Network Star!

FOOD MEMORIES OF FRANCE

Left: the fabled  French oyster - these are in a St. Malo market - are considered the best in the world. Just pry open the little darlings, squeeze lemon over, and down the hatch! If you don't like eating live things, try putting them on the half shell in a shallow pan, sprinkle chopped garlic, shallot and tomato over top, add juice of a lemon, a dusting of red pepper flakes, then dot with butter and slip into a 400 oven for a few minutes. Serve with crisp slices of toasted baguette.  Above right: MOULES FRITES...classic French bistro fare, above right from a local eatery near Mont St Michel. French mussels are smaller than our humongous farmed mussels, and they seem tastier. Simply steamed until they open, then poured into a plate with the inimitable french fry.

MY FAVORITE SALAD...broiled goat cheese atop a slice of toasted baguette. Easy? You bet! A thick foundation of spring mix, a hard-cooked egg in quarters, a bright rose of sliced tomato. And then one of my higher powers, lardons: lean cubes of bacon, fried until crisp and lavished atop the greens. A bit of vinaigrette to one side, extra bread for the thick chunk of chevre (a half inch is ideal, and if you only can get a skimpy log, just reshape it to a  more generous diameter). It rarely gets better than this!

FACTORY FOOD? Mais non, mes amis! In most French towns, food stalls are marvels of creativity and honesty. The deli counter in the Nantes food market pictured on the left offers scores of salads, dips, grilled and marinated veggies, an unctuous heap of brandade de morue, vine leaves, stuffed peppers and courgettes and zucchini, salted anchovies in huge tins (none of this measly eight fish in a tiny can, thank you). All amazingly fresh.

Right: The BUTTER master slicing off this sublime artisan-produced buerre! It's cut to order, given a final spank with wooden paddles, and lovingly wrapped for the client. Take that, Land O Lakes!
 

NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS...years ago, I would never fail to visit Au Pied du Cochon in the old Les Halles area. It was a real bistro of the old-fashioned sort, and justly famous for its French Onion Soup Gratinee. Nothing ever, in my estimation, came up to its quality. The down-to-earth ambiance didn't hurt, either. My friend Val and I went in on a brisk, rainy evening this October; I'd raved too much about it, she wanted to try. The place had been tarted up something fierce, and the waiters wore tuxedos. Yikes! The floors were carpetted! We were seated amidst thick white napery, heavy silverware, fifty tourists, and a warehouse full of Murano glass chandeliers. The prize came in the traditional huge bowl, the cheese browned and crisp. It was served with a flourish (on not one but two plates, yet). It looked like the real thing. Pretty! Eagerly, I dug in. And...? It was thin, over-salted, tasteless. What a shame what the siren call of a million tourists can accomplish.

SO...WHAT IS THIS? Sometimes I run across a kitchen or serving impliment that's new to me, and I like to see if anyone can identify it. This one is French, and I partook in its use in October at a birthday party in Paris. The user of this silver impliment had to search over the city to find it, but when he had it in his clutches, Jean-Marc really knew how to use it! So...what is this?

When I set up this blog in September a week before I took off on a two month trip, I had happy visions of posting fascinating tales from France to Egypt to Jordan, then on to Syria, Lebanon, and finishing up with Turkey. Well, the whole entrprise has had a lot more to do with being a turkey than visiting the country or cooking the bird. For 60 non-stop days, I was moving: bus, taxi, train, ferry, bus, taxi, bus, bus bus...and if I wasn't moving I was sightseeing: pyramids, temples, mosques, cathedrals (there was a cathedral, right?), tombs, ruins, temples, tombs, tombs, temples, tombs. Egyptian, Roman, Nabataean, Mamluk, Crusader, Ottoman, more Roman and yet more Roman. In the end, even I had had enough ruins. In Antalya, where the ever-traveling Roman Emperor Hadrian visited, I yawned as I passed under the gate he'd had built nearly 2000 years ago. Another triumphal gate? Such a bore!
But enough whining. It was a fabulous trip. Giza, Luxor, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Dendara, Karnak, Valley of the Kings, Tombs of the Nobles, Dahab and the Red Sea!...and that's just Egypt! Petra! Jerash! Damascus! Palmyra! Beirut! Nemrut Dag! It was spectacular! And I can't figure out how to get the photos off my chip and into the computer! But I will, I promise.
And, I am a failure at deciphering foreign keyboards, particularly the ones in Turkey. Apparently American programs don't read Turkish typing; the @ is in wierd places over in the eastern Med. So that's why you haven't gotten the scores of informative, recipe-ridden blogs.
Sorry. I'll do better next time.
Ps - Is this type too small?

FELAFEL RULES!

October 15 in LUXOR, EGYPT...The Nile flows placidly past Luxor's gigantic river-side temple, and the white wings of feluccas dart from shore to shore. To the west, the rugged Theban hills guarding the Valley of the Kings glow in the fading sun; there, it's over a hundred in the shade, except there isn't any shade.  And the place has been Disneyfied, with walkways and tidy stone walls, all in blinding beige stone that absorbs the relentless heat. Bring lots of water, a bandana, and your umbrella if you want to survive; frankly, a hat is pretty useless, the umbrella a lifesaver.
Afternoon call to prayer suddenly booms out of scores of speakers, an embroidery of virile sound that echoes and re-echoes. The call is joined by the bells of the Catholic church next door. Shaded by canvas screens, I am lolling on a couch on my hotel's rooftop terrace, sipping fruit juice and trying to be serious about anything but enjoying the view of so much history smack before my eyes. The hotel cat is snoring at my side and I'm tempted to join him.
But I am hungry. I'm thinking about felafel. Egyptian food gets a bad rap, generally, but there's a couple of dishes that are central to my survival as long as I'm here, and both of them are excellent. Felafel is first, of course: deep fried golf-ball sized pieces of thick chickpea batter, stuffed in a 5" round piece of thin Egyptian bread, slathered with tahini sauce, topped with tomato and cucumber salad and stewed eggplant. Mark Bittman provides a great felafel recipe in his book The World's Best Recipes.
But the eggplant is what makes the felafel a million times better. I asked the hard-working guys at "my" felafel stand, just opposite Luxor Temple, for the recipe.  I'm considered a regular, and they charge me what the locals are charged. Generously, they walked me through the eggplant process. A bowl of this in your fridge guarantees many happy noshes, and only improves with a few days waiting.

STEWED EGGPLANT, LUXOR STYLE
1 cup tomato sauce (not Italian)
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tbsp olive or canola oil
1/2 tsp cumin or to taste
1 large eggplant, unpeeled; equivalent weight in Japanese is okay
Chopped parsley, lots of it, to garnish

Slice eggplant into fingers, salt and leave to drain while you saute the onion and garlic in oil until transparent. Add onion/garlic and cumin to tomato sauce. Let simmer while you fry eggplant - preferably deep-fry - until crisp. Add to tomato sauce; mix; simmer for 20 - 30 minutes or until thickened. Salt and pepper to taste. Stuff into pita or directly into your mouth. Sadly, Egyptian pita is rarely available; if you find a source, treasure it. To give this a more Turkish twist, add a couple of glops of pomegranate molasses.

DELICIOUS SYRIAN FOOD?

DATELINE DAMSCUS: The entrance to the mosque is through a 1/4 mile long covered souk jammed with locals nd vendors of every item imaginable. At the end of the souk soars the massive remains of a roman temple, a half dozen 30' columns and facade still reminding us that Rome owned this neck of the woods 1900 years ago. But the enormous mosque - which incoroporates many Roman fragments - remnds the viewer of who's boss now.
We had to put on nondescript putty-colored robes, with hoods,  to enter the mosque. Instant anonymity! The outer walls are perhaps 45' high, the entrance portal 18' or so high, great double doors dating back hundreds of years. We removed our shoes, as required.
The main courtyard is nearly the size of a football field, the marble paving gleaming and smooth from millions of unshod feet. It's surrounded by an arcade of massive arches, all once decorated completely with spectacular mosaics; the remaining ones are magnificent and rival any in the western world (Ravenna's Byzantine ones spring to mind, but really can't hold a candle to these in either size or impact).
People roamed about, sat in the shade of the arcades; kids ran and screamed and tussled, women - resembling bundles of dark laundry in their voluminous robes - chatted in small groups. Men strolled around or sat with other men doing basically what the women did but looking far more comfiortable in their western clothes. Families - the fathers tenderly solicitous of their children, regardless of gender - congregated both in the courtyard or inside the huge building. 
As with most mosques, there are no pews or other seating, just thick carpet on the floors, and no illustrations or pictures, just a line of flowing arabic script high on the walls. Women ranged along the back wall facing the mihrab, which marks the direction of Mecca, to which all Muslims prostrate themselves.
In the center of the space was a large tomb, perhaps 10' x 18' x 10' high, enclosed with green glass, around which worshippers gathered and pressed their forheads. Green is the color of Islam. This is the reputed tomb of John the Baptist, regarded as a prophet in this religion.
Children played noisily everywhere. Mosques are not simply places to worship, but places to meet or relax. Except during services, they are treated much as a public gathering space. As children are a precious asset to any family, they are allowed great latitude in behavior, and more than a few brawls broke out while we were inside.
When we left, by a rear door, we were in the old souk, and faced with a wall of carpets (many made in India, for pete's sake), a fresh juice stand, a score of shops with scarves swaying in the light breeze, and an impatient string of cars waiting to pass.
I state this categorically: Syrian drivers are, in my estimation, the worst drivers on the planet. Bar none. The Syrian people are lovely, friendly, open, welcoming, smiling, happy and generous. A Syrian driver is absolutely the opposite: aggressive, impatient, indifferent to your fate as a pedestrian, unapologetic, willing to nudge you aside with their fender (yes! really!), foolhardy, addicted to speed under the most absurd conditions ( a crowded souk, for example, or a jam-packed intersection), and believes that he owns the very earth you walk on. The police seem to agree, which makes walking - or should I say jogging - in Damascus quite an event.
But to the most important thing: food. We were repeatedly told Syrina food was excellent. We read that Syrian food is excellent. We have made Syrian food at home and it is excellent. So what the hell happened to Syrian food in Syria? It is, except for the street corner juice or shawarma stands, dreadful.
We had dinner at what was purported to be the best restaurant in Damascus and, leaving aside indifferent service that would give any decent French waiter a seizure,  the food was mediocre, mostly flavorless, and noted only for its large portions.
We go to Lebanon next; now, that's supposed to be really good food. I can hardly wait!
SYRIAN STYLE TABOULLEH: mince two bunches of parsley. Put in a bowl. Chop two fresh tomatoes. Put on top of parsley. Drizzle oil over. Serve, if you dare.