Dia de Los Muertos/Lovely Bones

Yesterday, on kind of a whim, I bought tickets to Mexico for Day of the Dead and the two surrounding weeks. It's been a dream of mine for several years, and I finally have a chance. Also, my lovely friend Julia will be there for the first two weeks, and she seems like a really ideal person to travel with.

Coinciding with All Saints' Day, Dia de Los Muertos is like a graveside family reunion. To an outsider it seems macabre, but the richly coloured paper-mache Catrina statues exist to mock Death, personified. At midnight, the religious hold picnic-vigils with their loved ones whose souls are believed to return, guided by the sound of churchbells and the scents of their favourite foods, and rich marigolds.

My daydreams keep returning to city blocks taken over by flower and folk art markets, marigolds on the air, the crowded cemeteries full of those who go to honor their dead. Seas of flowers, people walking with brooms, buckets of water, back and forth to the communal water tap so they can clean headstones. They set up their altars, bring food, alcohol, sugar skulls, and music and sit with their departed loved ones.

Sugar Skulls
Ingredients:
granulated sugar
meringue powder
powdered sugar
dye coloring paste + water

Tools:
sugar skull mold
large mixing bowl
electric mixer
food processor
cardboard cut out to the sizes of the mold pieces
pastry bags for frosting
colored foil for decoration

Besides the mold, the key ingredient to the mix is the meringue powder. Some recipes suggest egg whites, but meringue powder is cleaner and probably smells better than raw egg. I found it at a local gourmet bakery specialty store but I know that they carry it at Michael's, in the cake decorating section. Don't ask the employees, they never know where anything is. Michael's also carries the dye paste which you use for the frosting mix later on.

Day 1 consists of making the actual skulls and letting them dry. Combining the ingredients you wonder, "How is this going to turn hard?" Trust me, it does. Press the sugar mix into the mold, pack it in tight. Take a straight surface to the back and scrape off the excess so the back is flat. Then, take a piece of cardboard, flip it over, just like you would with a cake. The sugar should fall out easily, if it sticks, that means your mix is too moist. I find that rinsing out the mold every few pieces helped out, just make sure it is very dry before you make another piece. If a piece doesn't come out right, just put it back in the bowl, mix and try again.This is the downside, you have to allow an 8-12 hour drying period.

If you have leftover sugar in the bowl, throw it out. It will harden in your cookware. Do not attempt to do this on a humid day, the sugar will not set up properly and you will be disappointed.

Day 2 is about assembly and decorating. The first step is to make royal icing, which is basically sugary cement. Do not attempt to make this unless you have an electric mixer or food processor. Once it is done you smear some on the back piece, press it against the face part. Some icing will ooze out of the seam, just run your finger over it till it is smooth. Try to do it in one go.

Set them aside to dry while you mix your frosting colors. Mix your desired frosting colors and pack them in frosting bags.Then the fun part: decorating.

Use plastic baggies or disposable cups to mix your colors, and you will save yourself the aggravation of cleaning it up later. Only use concentrated paste to dye. Liquid food coloring dilutes the frosting, rendering it useless. Keep the frosting covered as much as possible; it will begin to harden if exposed to air. Close any windows near the frosting to prevent drying. If you find that it is drying out too much add a little bit of water and remix it. If you are not skilled with a pastry bag, they sell squeeze bottles you can use that will give you awesome detail, but beware, they clog easily because of the frosting consistency. Find one that has a larger nib diameter. The foil pieces are adhered with frosting.Once your skulls are decorated, set them aside to dry. 5 lbs of sugar renders about 13 medium sized skulls. Once they're ready you set them up in your location or altar of choice.

PS: you don't eat the skulls. I'm cheating by putting them on my food blog, because while they are made of edible materials, the sugar is just used because it makes such a lovely white surface, almost like bones.

I think perhaps a Day of the Dead party is in order when I get back, with sugar skulls on cupcakes, Agua Fresca, ceviche, and little altars everywhere.

**photos courtest of google image search - I know it's cheating, this entry is full cheating - hopefully after my trip I will have many more of my own**

You are what you eat, Angry Chris.

What did you eat today?
not a whole hell of a lot. horrendous fast food. also energy drinks and fruit. as much as i love food, i am terribly bad at actually eating.

What do you never eat?
creamed corn, canned beans and molasses, canned pork and beans. basically anything that come out of a can. the worst is creamed corn though, that will actually make me ill.

In my refrigerator, you can always find
various cheeses and fruits? of ten my fridge is empty. but man i like grapes and cheese, not together mind you.......or maybe yes together, i will have to try this out.

What is your favorite kitchen item?
oh man, i love double boilers, also crock pots, OH AND SPRING FORM PANS!!! man i love me spring form pans. many fine cakes can be made with spring for pans.Where do you eat out most frequently?generally sushi places, i keep saying that i am gonna go out and eat at more varied places, but sadly i am a lazy creature of habit.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
hunter s thompson once said:"Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert…. Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music…. All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked."

now i have never really been a huge breakfast man, i have always held dinner in a higher regard. but i wholey share the mans sentiments on a meal. somethings are best served alone and to excess. so i think rather then having a very fine meal, i would like classic simple food, in large quantities, and seeing as it's a last meal i would probably not mind the booze or cocaine either.

You are what you eat, Sarah K.

What did I eat today:

A toasted tomato sandwitch, blackberries, rice crackers and Salt Spring Island feta!

What I never eat:

Pork rinds! Ewwww. I've pretty much eaten everything else, ever.

In my refrigerator:

Everything. I still live at home and my parents don't care about money when it comes to good quality food-stuffs. If you want it, I've got it.

My favorite kitchen item:

Either the expresso machine, the crepe pan or my dads overly expensive Japanese knife that makes cutting the most fun in the world.

Where I eat out most frequently:

Ebi Ten by the VPL. I pretend that I'm in Japan and tuck away with a spicy tuna roll and a cali.

Last meal:

It would in all honesty look something like that skech in that Monty Pithon movie where that huge guy eats all night, puking in buckets. I'm a pretty huge fan of food so I think myself exploding a minute before the before the universe - would be a pretty good scene - a wafar thinn biskit seems like a fitting end for me.

You are what you eat, Imogen.

What did you eat today?
Pumpkin bread, Rainier cherry tart with dried flower petals, hazelnut latte. But the day is still young. Hoping for masala dosas for dinner.

What do you never eat?
Nacho cheese, pork and beans in a can, natto, black licorice, rice with soy sauce on it, ice cream with any peanut butter component, Fruit Loops. Poorly cooked anything, or anything that I'm ambivalent about, in ideal circumstances.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find...
Old fashioned mustard, milk, sambal oelek, leafy greens, egg whites, beer. Jam I made myself. I have a definite preference for pungent things, as a rule. We usually have ice cream or an ice cream derivative in the freezer, too, and a big old chunk of Callebaut chocolate for baking.

What is your favorite kitchen item?
My Global knives.

Where do you eat out most frequently?
$3 breakfast at Bon's off Broadway. Sushi at Daimasu in Metrotown. Dinners out lately seem to be mostly sushi or diner breakfast at all hours, but other favourites include Sai-Z for special occasions, Congee Noodle House when I'm sick or sad (if chicken soup is Jewish penicillin, then chicken congee must be Chinese penicillin). Vietnamese subs. Chinese egg tarts.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Really good sushi, particularly mackerel and spicy tuna. Buttered toast. Prosciutto e melone. Oysters. Raw and fried and salt-baked with aioli. Eclairs. Okanagan peaches and cherries. Dense chocolate chai cake with ganache and edible flowers. Pea shoots. Bon's coffee.

I tried to like Vitamin Water. It matches my lululemon yoga pants, and I wanted to like it.
Unfortunately, it has this weird... density to it, that puts me off in beverages.
Like those Orbitz drinks from the nineties, and red bean bubble tea (which combines some of my favourite things - red beans and tapioca - into an abysmal swampy mess).
I just don't like to drink anything that has the potential to get stuck in my teeth, you know?

I just want to eat Mickey Mouse shaped cheeseburgers with no one to judge me.

I'm annoyed by vegetarianism, and I'm annoyed by men who think not eating vegetables is somehow bound up in their masculinity, and I'm annoyed by people who don't saute things before they stick them in the oven and pour sauce over them, and I'm annoyed by people who think the breast is the only good part of the chicken when it's actually maybe the worst part, but the thing that annoys me most is this behaviour that I've seen in friends and family indulge in, whereby they will arbitrarily decide to reject an entire class of food. 'I don't like fish.' 'I don't like cheese.' 'I don't like rice.'
I take the Anthony Bourdain approach to these people: they must be terrible in bed.

The last entry, upon closer inspection, seems kind of cloyingly Martha Stewartish.

I shall attempt to give future entries more edge.

Possibly with cussing!

Do, Make, Eat, Think

What I'm hoping for is the story of my life through the food I eat, in words and pictures. Is that pretentious? You have to take yourself awfully seriously to blog, I understand.

Anyway, without further ado:
I object to the whole slow food movement because I think it doesn't recognize how rare it is to have eight spare hours to cook a meal with. And how the have/have not division of spare time frequently exposes the same have/have not division of money. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, there's a good chance you work all the time and your job doesn't come with paid vacation.

I really firmly believe that everyone should have something beautiful in their lives every day regardless of whether or not they have vast quantities of leisure time. Four hour strawberry jam with strawberries from the Okanagan is gorgeous, but so are lots of things that cost less and take less time. Tiny, jewel-red local strawberries from the Trout Lake Farmer's Market taste like sunshine too, for far less time and money.

That said, when I have time in the summer, I make jam, because it's worthwhile to me. Because I like the feeling of giving away something that I made with my hands to my friends (not my family, unfortunately. They're a nurse and a biologist and extraordinary germophobes who balk at homemade wines and preserves).

On the weekend my beau and I were driving through the weird crispy hills of the Okanagan and we stopped at a couple of fruit stands, and picked up strawberries and peaches. Upon closer inspection I realized that the fruit stand woman had actually sold me California strawberries not-so-cleverly disguised as Okanagan, but the resulting jam was fine.

Like with most things, I don't really use a recipe, just loose proportions divined from trial and error, and kept in my head and nowhere else.

Strawberry Peach Jam

(needless to say, all quantities are approximate, but I'm not going to bother saying so for each one. In most cases, except for the particular alchemy of pastry recipes and technique, assume that tilde is there.)

5 lbs strawberries

4 peaches

1 1/2 cups of sugar

the juice of one grapefruit

Cut the tops off the strawberries, then cut them in half, and throw them in a very large pot. Peel the peaches by scoring them with a knife, and then blanching them in boiling water and then dipping them in ice cold water. Dice them roughly. Add this to the pot, as well as the sugar, and squeeze the grapefruit over the whole thing.

Boil it down until it is the consistency that you imagine commercial jam would be if you heated it to until it was molten.

Pectin helps to set jam. The grapefruit is there because it's high in pectin, and I don't like to buy expensive commercial pectin, or add so much sugar to compensate for the absence of added pectin that the jam is tooth-shatteringly sweet. Instead, I add the juice of a grapefruit, and along with the peaches and strawberries, it will taste like sunshine on the greyest January mornings; I promise. Some other combinations that I like are blueberry vanilla bean and blackberry ginger. In these cases I either have to add more sugar or commercial pectin.

Sterilize your jars and lids by leaving them in a large pot of boiling water for a minute or so. Take them out with tongs, and store the jars on a cookie sheet in the oven at 400 until you're ready to put the jam in them. Ladle in the jam until it's flush with the top of the jar. Put on the lid, holding the hot lid and jar with a tea towel or pot holder. Wait for the jam to cool. When you hear a loud "pop", that means that the jars have sealed, the jam is preserved, and will keep for about a year unopened in your cupboard. If not, the jam will keep for about two months in your fridge, and is still delicious. Some ornery lids just won't pop, and there's nothing to be done about it.

I think homemade strawberry jam is equally fine on a slow Sunday morning with fresh scones, or on squishy store bought and nutritionally vacuous bread with margarine after a long day. Somewhere in the middle of those two, we spread the first jam of the season on the easiest crepes - 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, one egg, and 1 Tbsp melted butter. I'm fairly certain that will be the first recipe I teach my children, as soon as they're old enough to hold a whisk.