Gunternation

Hanging out with foodies is a good thing. You get to bask in a camaraderie of cuisine and take pictures of your plate with impunity. And sometimes you get free cake.

On our recent foodie field trip to Eastern Seaboard we met Caryna of Caryna’s Cakes. In the chitchat over our calamari and pig’s cheek, we learned that Caryna is a full-time baker who sells baked goods at various markets and supplies some small cafes and coffee shops as well as special orders. As a matter of fact she had been working at a market that very day and had driven straight to meet up with us all in Drogheda. She still had all her market gear in her car. She also mentioned that she had made a pumpkin apricot cake for the market that day, and that she had a few remaining slices in her car. She said she thought it was the kind of cake that would be even better the next day.

Pumpkin. We love pumpkin. Canned pumpkin is one of the items we accept in exchange for room and board in our apartment. When my aunt and uncle came to visit us they moved the cans of pumpkin into a carry-on to reduce weight on a checked bag, forgetting that canned pumpkin is, by Transportation Safety Authority definition, a gel. When questioned about this can of gel my uncle explained very passionately, Oh, I have to take that to my niece. She has to make pumpkin pie! Oh pumpkin pie, the agent said, well, of course. And the pumpkin boarded the plane. Pumpkin pie trumps terrorism risk. As well it should!

So, throughout our wonderful meal a little part of my mind kept thinking about the pumpkin cake in Caryna’s car. While eating the black pudding ballotine and sweet potato fries I kept thinking about pumpkin cake. As we left that evening I inquired as to whether I could purchase a slice. Dear reader, she gave us all her leftover pumpkin cake! She even sent it home on the pretty china plate, saying we could return it the next time we meet.

So I rode home from Drogheda with that cake on my lap (see photo at right), and that evening we read about that exact cake on Caryna’s blog. I marveled at the power of foodie fate that led that cake from a stranger’s kitchen into my home on that magical day.

Bill and I each took a slice to work on Monday. The cake was terrific. Full of those warm spices with perfect cream cheese frosting. We had no shortage of baked goods, having returned from Brown Hound Bakery with a gift box and a lemon cake. The pumpkin apricot cake was not overwhelmed by those treats at all.

Caryna has a great story about the provenance of the pumpkin apricot cake (plus the recipe) on her blog. She also has a recipe inspired by our visit to the Brown Hound Bakery and more information about her baking business.

Did I mention she delivers cakes on a vespa?

I loved field trips in school. The excitement of it all–boarding the bus, riding into Houston to visit the zoo or the Natural Science Museum (they had shrunken heads!). Having money for snacks and souvenirs. Extra opportunities to be with my friends and study the behavior of boys in a new environment. In his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, Bill took many field trips to the NASA Space Center, which was great because he loved the huge rocket, the lunar landing video game (before there were video game arcades), and the freeze dried ice cream.

Now we are grown up and we take field trips to restaurants and bakeries. In Drogheda. And we love it.

Last Saturday, we joined a crew of food bloggers to meet Jeni and Reuven, owners of Eastern Seaboard  to learn about their successful restaurant as well as their two new ventures, The Brown Hound Bakery and Mo’s To Go.

We assembled at the Brown Hound where Jeni and Reuven invited us into their delightful bakery.  Jeni and Reuven worked with New York baker Craig Thompson to develop the recipes and train the staff at Brown Hound.  Many of the offerings are inspired by Thompson’s grandmother’s recipes, and I have to say, Thompson must have the most elegant grandmother ever.

I can’t imagine entering the Brown Hound without expressing a few Wows. A mix of art gallery and Victorian parlor, the interior positively gleams with glass and chrome illuminating piles of scones,  towers of cookies, and cakes and pies topped with exquisite meringue and icing.  The cool metals are warmed by painted cake stands and platters and the most comforting of all sights–baskets of beautiful bread. Surfaces not covered by enticing edibles feature glassware by artist John Derian, or bottles of olive oil (which are art in themselves).

Jeni and Reuven were so kind to gift us each with a box of bakery samples, tied with a Brown Hound ribbon. I’ve heard that these treats did not last long for anyone. There’s a particular buzz about the chocolate banana bread and I have to join in that chorus. It’s moist, perfectly sweet, with huge chunks of delicious chocolate. We also bought a brown butter cake with lemon curd–beautiful to gaze upon, great texture, nicely tart lemon curd. I like that many of the cakes come in several sizes, including cupcake. We picked up a bottle of that gorgeous olive oil as well.

Next door to Brown Hound is Mo’s To Go, a takeaway featuring some choices from Eastern Seaboard as well as an item of extreme interest to the Americans in the group–corndogs. Along with hush puppies and fried whitebait, sides of cold spicy noodles and tabbouleh, this is not your average chipper. Jeni told me that Mo’s is named after her mom, who supports her and Reuven in so many ways, including frequently leaving food for them to find when they get home. The idea of food as gift is embodied throughout all three of Reuven and Jeni’s eateries, through attention to ingredients, preparation and presentation.

After gawking over Brown Hound and Mo’s, we settled down for the best part of the evening–dinner. Eastern Seaboard has been open in Drogheda for a few years and has developed a loyal following. I mentioned to a Laytown friend that I was meeting some foodies in Drogheda for dinner. “Oh, are you going to Eastern Seaboard?” he guessed,  “You’ll love it.” Our seating was a 6:00 and the restaurant was already busy. Our end of the table decided to order several starters to share. An extremely good idea as we got to taste tons of things, including perfect calamari, a luscious pig’s cheek terrine with celeriac slaw, crab cakes, garlicky crab claws, and a butcher’s board featuring pork rillettes and an amazing black pudding, chorizo and pistachio ballotine.

For mains I had the sea bream special with lemon salt and pea shoots. I chose Asian slaw and sweet potato wedges for sides. The fish was delish, especially the skin, and my sides were two great tastes that taste great together. The vinegary sesame flavor of the slaw was particularly refreshing. Bill’s rabbit was outstanding, tender and luscious with sides of perfect spinach and balsamic-laced lentils. The rabbit loin was char-grilled and topped with a smoked bacon and rabbit “ragù.” The smokiness from both the grilling and bacon perfectly complemented the tender rabbit.

For dessert a I had the coffee jelly with ice cream, on recommendation from Clare of An American in Ireland. Clare grew up eating coffee jelly (aka jello) in Japan and was thrilled when she found that Reuven, also Japanese, had included it on Eastern Seaboard’s menu. I absolutely loved this light, flavorful dessert, and am a bit obsessed with it at the mo. Bill’s Little Pots of Warm Chocolate Heaven were exactly what it says on the tin, and included chocolate pop rocks, if you can believe it.

Reuven told us they opened Eastern Seaboard to provide a casual dining option. “Casual Dining” has a black mark in the US for its association with the proliferation of chain restaurants, but the idea that dinner should not require high heels or a bank loan is a good one, and welcome in Ireland. I love the food first attitude at Eastern Seaboard.  But don’t think they don’t let the atmosphere suffer! (I swear their smoking lounge is going to encourage more people to start smoking. You have to see it.) It’s so obvious that these guys care, and I’m thrilled to have spent an evening in their world.

Many thanks to Clare for organizing, and to all the other food bloggers for your stellar company:

Caryna’s Cakes

Daily Spud

Smorgasblog

Kuchennie

Gracie Bakes

Dinner du Jour

Katz Miaow

It is truly fun to dine with the food obsessed!

Um, Can I bum a cig? Don’t want to leave this smoking lounge!

Food longings are a part of expat life. Put a group of expats together and they start talking about foods they miss. They don’t have to be expats from the same country. Someone can tell me they miss eating yellow mangoes fresh from their back yard, and I’m like, Ah I know, I miss breakfast tacos!

Really, food longings are a part of regular life. Anyone who has ever moved to a new state and not been able to find Green Goddess salad dressing, or thinks about those oysters from that vacation in Florida, or misses her grandmother’s pecan pie knows food longing.

My expat food longings fall loosely into two categories. I miss my food routines–kitchen staples,  restaurant favorites–but I also miss foods that I rarely ate, but the fact that I can’t find them in Dublin intensifies the longing.

Fritos are in the absence makes fonder category. If you’ve never had a Frito, a Frito is a bit like a thick corn nacho chip. They’re a little greasy and a little processed and yet, you’ll eat the whole bag because munch a bunch of Fritos go with lunch. In the South* we might put chile and cheese on a pile of Fritos and call it Frito pie. Frito pie is a common festival food, served right in the Frito bag.

Bill and I were talking about Frito Pie one day and along came the longing. So I put Fritos on the list to bring back from our Texas trip, and recently Bill made chili and we had Frito Pie.

It was good.

In fact, Bill’s chili was great and perhaps a bit too elevated for Frito Pie. Chili is one of the few things I know how to make, and my recipe involves cooking garlic and onions, browning beef, opening a variety of cans–whole tomatoes, tomato paste, pinto beans–and adding plenty of chili powder and cumin. Makes a passable chili.

This is what Bill did:

First I soaked some ancho, pasilla and guajillo chiles in hot water for about 30 minutes. Then I whizzed these up in the food processor with a can of tomatoes, an onion and a few cloves of garlic. I passed the chile mixture through a fine strainer and then simmered the strained chile sauce until it was thick and brick-colored.  Next I browned a pound of beef mince and a pound of my homemade Mexican chorizo together and transferred it to a strainer over a bowl to drain. I separated the fat from the liquid and added the liquid to the chile sauce. The fat I used to fry a chopped onion and some minced garlic. When the onion was translucent I added a can of roasted green chiles, cumin, ground coriander, cocoa powder, some umami-bombs (marmite, maggi seasoning and soy sauce), the chile sauce, chicken broth and the browned meat. This simmered for a couple of hours before I added some masa harina to thicken it a bit and some chopped cilantro (coriander). My chili is normally not this complicated but I had fun experimenting.

The next day all the Fritos were gone and Bill had the genius notion to serve chili on roasted sweet potato wedges. Ladies and gentleman, this was fantastic. Chili should be served on sweet potato wedges at least 65% of the time. Not all the time as that would limit chili’s potential, but 65% is my recommendation.

Read an NPR Hidden Kitchens story about the masa origins of Fritos here.

*I never realized Frito Pie was a Southern thing until I tweeted about it and a fellow expat from the Midwestern US didn’t know what Frito Pie was, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and sure enough, Southern. Does seem Southern when you think about it.