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The Man Who Didn’t Like Chicken

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That man is me. I used to eat chicken every once in a while, but once I got into a relationship with Martine, who loves chicken more than any other meat, I decided to concentrate on being a part-time vegetarian who occasionally eats seafood and pork, and sometimes even beef.

Just to show you how un-American I am in my food tastes, I absolutely hate coffee. I will not touch coffee or anything that is coffee-flavored, including ice cream and tiramisu.

My dislike of chicken started with my father, who also hated chicken. I remember the look of dismay on his face when he had to eat one of his sister-in-law’s home-cooked meals, which usually featured chicken or turkey. (By the way, I also don’t care for turkey or any other feathered creature for that matter.)

Otherwise, my tastes in food are fairly normal. I make sure that Martine gets to eat chicken at her favorite restaurants from time to time. Her all-time favorite is an Armenian rotisserie chicken place in Glendale called Sevan Chicken. While she tears into her favorite legs and thighs, I just have some hummus or moutabal with a pita. It isn’t fair if I just eat what I liked without letting her have the same privilege.

Fortunately, there are some things that both of us like.

The Politics of Tea

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Antique Thomas J. Lipton Tea Tin

I am one of those strange people who don’t like coffee. Since early childhood, I have been addicted to tea. In my days, I have probably consumed over seventy-five pounds of tea leaves. At the present time, I begin every morning with one large cup of Ceylon, Darjeeling, or Assam tea sweetened with honey and with a squeeze of lime.

Until I read Roy Moxham’s Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire (2003), I had no idea that the history of the tea trade was so bloody. In the eighteenth century, it even figured in a war fought by the British East India Company and the Empire of China. The Chinese lost and were forced to take Indian opium in trade for their finest tea. (Read Maurice Collis’s Foreign Mud for a fascinating account of the “Opium War.”)

To avoid dealing with the Chinese, the British finally decided to grow their own tea. They began in the northeastern Indian state of Assam and eventually spread to other parts of the subcontinent, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Africa.

I knew that both green tea and black tea come from the same plant, the Camellia sinensis, or Chinese camellia. It is only in the way they are processed that the resulting beverage is green or black.

Fortunately, the early planters found that the tea plant was also native to Assam, and that it was not really necessary to import plants or seeds from China. It is from these plants in Assam that most tea plantings outside of China were derived.

Where the tea trade became particularly bloody was during the nineteenth century. The native populations of the tea-growing areas in India and Ceylon did not care to become indentured agricultural workers at a tea plantation. The result was that the owners of tea plantations had to import coolies from outside the area. The way these coolies were treated by the British tea growers was shameful, resulting in many thousands of deaths.

All so that I could drink a nice cup of tea in the morning!

The Cafes of Buenos Aires

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Inside on Cafe Tortoni on Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires

In my library, I have an entire bookcase dedicated to works relating mostly to Mexico and South America. Today I picked up one of my favorite titles—Gabriela Kogan’s The Authentic Bars, Cafés and Restaurants of Buenos Aires—and felt waves of nostalgia breaking over me as I turned the pages.

I have been to Buenos Aires three times. The first time, even though I broke my right shoulder later in the trip, I fell in love with the country and its capital. One of the things that impressed me most was the café culture—and I don’t mean coffee, which I never drink.

There are dozens of neighborhood eating spots, many of which was been around since the late 19th century. In my visits to the city, I patronized the following traditional cafés:

  • La Puerto Rico in the Montserrat neighborhood
  • El Tortoni, also in Montserrat
  • El Preferido de Palermo in Palermo
  • El Rincon in Recoleta, right across from the famous cemetery

I cannot look at the book’s glossary without licking my lips:

  • Berenjenas en Escabeche: eggplant marinated in a sauce of vinegar, onions, carrots, and peppercorns
  • Conejito a la Cazadora: traditional preparation of rabbit, with garlic, vegetables, white wine, tomatoes and mushrooms
  • Choripán: spiced pork sausage sandwich (my favorite)
  • Fabada Asturiana: bean and bacon soup
  • Fugazetta Rellena: “folded” pizza with onion, filled with cheese
  • Matambre: meat roulade filled with vegetables and hard-boiled eggs (another favorite)
  • Pejerrey Gran Paraná: a white meat river fish from the Rio Paraná served with boiled potatoes
  • Suprema Maryland: a dish made with breaded chicken, fried banana, french fries, and corn custard

In 2011, I went to Argentina with Martine. She is an incredibly picky eater who eschews the slightest hint of spiciness. Yet she loved the food she ate at the Buenois Aires cafés.

The Decline and Fall of the American Meal

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Last night, Martine and I had dinner at a restaurant in Glendale that we have loved for twenty-five years. As soon as we walked in, we noticed some ominous signs. The waitstaff were all young, they were wearing bright new T-shirts imprinted with the name of the restaurant, and there was a brand new illuminated sign. Most seriously, the old owner was not there.

For the first time ever, both Martine and I left the restaurant feeling slightly ill. I almost didn’t make it back to my parked car. And it was lucky that there was a large Mobil gas station at the corner of Brand and Chevy Chase in Glendale, where I was able to dispose of some of the intestinal irritants.

Mind you, I can understand why restaurants are dropping like flies. It is no fun to own or work at a restaurant, especially after the Covid-19 lockdowns. And increasingly, there is more microwaving than cooking taking place in the kitchen—by people who don’t know much about food safety.

Not only in restaurants, but across the board the quality of the American meal has declined precipitously. Even supermarkets are moving away from serving customers who do their own cooking. Recently, I have had problems finding basic food items such as barley or peanut oil. What there is no lack of are frozen meals that taste like cardboard and various “helper” mixes for people afraid to make anything from scratch.

Increasingly, the foods that people eat at home or in restaurants are deficient in nutrition and flavor.

One thing that particularly bothers me is the disappearance of ethnic restaurants as the next generation takes charge. When I first came to Los Angeles, there were loads of great Italian, French, Hungarian, Greek, and other ethnic restaurants. And there were even good cheeseburgers that didn’t look like a 300-pound guy named Rufus sat on them.

Potato and Spinach Curry

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Vegetarian Potato and Spinach Curry

After cooking a bland mushy dish for Martine—at her request—I had a sudden urge to make something hot and spicy. A simple and tasty vegetarian dish is a potato and spinach curry. Here are my cooking instructions:

  1. Pour several tablespoons of sunflower oil into a cooking pot and light a medium fire under it.
  2. Add about 2 tablespoons of black mustard seeds when the oil gets hot.
  3. Add the same amount of cumin seeds (jira).
  4. After about a minute, add 2 peeled russet potatoes cut into 3/4 inch cubes. Stir frequently to avoid ticking to the pot.
  5. Add approx 1 tablespoon each of turmeric, ground cumin, ground coriander, and powdered chile pepper.
  6. Add salt to taste.
  7. While cooking potatoes, soak 1 bunch of spinach leaves in a large bowl, shake off any dirt, and chop and add to the potatoes after spices added..
  8. If you like your curry fiery, chop up and add a serrano chile.
  9. Cover and cook until potatoes sufficiently cooked.
  10. Serve with plain yogurt to cut the hotness of the chiles.

A Bowl of Pho

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This afternoon’s Mindful Meditation session ended at one p.m., so I made my way to 505 Spring Street for a bowl of Vietnamese soup at Downtown Los Angeles Pho. I was hungry, and lately I craved the filet mignon pho with extra jalapeño pepper slices. To this I added some Sriracha hot sauce and some hot chile oil. Finally, I added just a small dash of soy sauce.

With my chopsticks, I picked up a slice of jalapeño, a piece of filet mignon, and some rice noodles and shoveled it into my mouth. Oh, it was s-o-o-o-o-o good!

I was not always a chile head. Growing up in Cleveland, I could not believe the spiciness when my mother cooked lecsó, a kind of hot pepper ratatouille much beloved by Hungarians. Even my father wouldn’t touch it, and I certainly wouldn’t.

Coming to Los Angeles changed me in many ways, especially when it came to food. In Cleveland, I hated fish; in L.A., I loved sushi. In Cleveland, I preferred my food bland; in L.A., I went way past jalapeño to habanero.

Does all that hot stuff bother me? Nope. In fact, I find each chopstick portion a delight. When people I know of the bland food persuasion are surprised by my food tastes, I tell them that chile peppers are a vegetable, and what do they have against vegetables?

Potato Eggplant Curry

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This recipe came to me through the “How to Cook Great” site on YouTube. Click here for an instructive video that produces almost exactly what I will describe in this post. The following recipe will make 4-5 servings of a delicious vegan curry.

For some of the ingredients, you will need to shop at an Indian grocery—especially if you want the dish to taste authentic. These ingredients are marked in the text by IND in square brackets: [IND].

I typically use a largish nonstick pot that has a cover for the final stage of cooking.

On to the recipe:

  1. Put several tablespoons of sunflower seed oil in the pot and turn to heat to moderate high.
  2. When the oil is hot, add a several tablespoons of black mustard seeds [IND] and cumin seed (also known as jeera) [IND] and watch the seeds pop. Stir for up to a minute.
  3. Take two largish russet potatoes, peel them, and cut into pieces slightly smaller than 1 cubic inch. Stir for several minutes.
  4. Add a large dollop of garlic ginger paste [IND] and stir in.
  5. Add salt to taste,
  6. Slice one medium size red onion and stir into the mix. Stir for a couple of minutes.
  7. Add the following three spices, approximately one heaping tablespoon of each: (a) haldi turmeric [IND], (b) cumin, and (c) (if desired) a hot chile powder. For the chile powder, you can substitute Hungarian paprika if you can’t handle the heat. Stir.
  8. Dice into pieces a medium to large eggplant and add to the mix. Continue stirring.
  9. If you like spicy food, mice one jalapeño or two serrano chile peppers.
  10. Cut up four or five small tomatoes and add to the pot. Stir.
  11. Turn down the heat to medium low, cover the pot, and cook for ten to twenty minutes.
  12. Chop a handful of cilantro and add before serving.

Tojásleves

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The Plaza Mayor in Cuenca, Ecuador

My brother and I were in Cuenca, Ecuador. In a few days, he had to leave to honor a work commitment, while I was to stay behind for another week. On the Plaza Mayor in Cuenca, Dan and I made an interesting discovery. There was a café that served a perfectly authentic Hungarian tojásleves, or egg soup.

When we checked for any Magyar influence in the kitchen, we were met with looks of confusion and consternation. What reminded us so much of our mother’s beloved egg soup was actually a local dish.

Sometimes, one can travel halfway across the world only to find something that reminds one of home. Not always. More often than not, one makes strange new discoveries.

This time, after a couple weeks in Ecuador, Dan and I had a taste that sent us back to our childhood in Cleveland. Here is a copy of the original Hungarian recipe. Only, Mom would add some sour cream in ours.

Down the Hatch

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Flame-Roasted Hatch Chiles

Hatch chiles are in season!

That is one of my most favorite things about summer. I love the taste of roasted Hatch chiles. Unfortunately, when I roast them on the flame of my gas range, Martine and my neighbors complain of the sharp (but utterly delicious) smell.

Yesterday, I bought a bag of Hatch chiles, intending to roast them in the oven. Following the instructions of a website which shall remain nameless, I roasted them at 550 degrees (288° Celsius) for about 15 minutes a side. I was told that after being locked in a plastic bag for 5-10 minutes, the blistered outer skin could be easily removed with my bare hands.

Hah! Instead, they went all to pieces, with the blistered skin not properly separating from the chile pepper itself. I wound up throwing the whole batch out.

So I decided to buy chiles that has been roasted and stripped of their skin. It cost a bundle, but I like to use roasted chiles in much of my cooking, such as in my Spanish Rice, with scrambled eggs, and so on. I could keep a supply in my freezer for up to six months.

I truly love Hatch chile peppers, so I could hardly wait until I pick them up on Saturday, August 16, at my local Bristol Farms market.

Restaurant Confidential

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Restaurant Kitchen

Shortly after we survived the Covid-19 onslaught, I noticed that many of my favorite restaurants were shutting their doors. There was Papa Cristo’s Greek restaurant at Pico and Normandie near downtown L.A.; the Original Pantry at 9th and Figueroa, which was closed only a single day over the last century but is no more; and Jerry’s Deli, once a thriving chain.

Come to think of it, I am always surprised that restaurant stay open. I cannot imagine a less rewarding job than being the owner, manager, or supervising chef at a restaurant. The hours are long, your hands get scarred and burnt; you don’t make much money; and there are stringent health and sanitation requirements.

I have been reading Anthony Bourdain’s book Kitchen Confidential, which tells of one chef’s experiences in the New York and Provincetown, MA restaurant scenes. At one point, he writes:

To want to own a restaurant can be a strange and terrible affliction. What causes such a destructive urge in so many otherwise sensible people? Why would anyone who has worked hard, saved money, often been successful in other fields, want to pump their hard-earned cah down a hole that statistically at least will almost surely prove dry? Why venture into an industry with enormous fixed expenses (rent, electricity, gas, water, linen, maintenance, insurance, license fees, trash removal, etc.), with a notoriously transient and unstable workforce, and highly perishable inventory of assets?

Especially with the current occupant of the White House, who has it in for kitchen and agricultural workers, who traditionally tend to be illegal immigrants. As the owner of hotel restaurants at his glitzy Trump properties, who is going to work in his restaurant kitchens? Then, too, all this uncertainty over tariffs is going to hit hard at food items that are typically imported, such as winter fruits, avocados, and seafood. But then, we are entering a period of seat-of-the-pants decisions made without weighing the consequences.

Perhaps all that will be left are the “factory” restaurants like McDonalds and Burger King. That would certainly slash my restaurant expenses.