I Bet You Gonna Ambush Me, Barracuda

Among the several tasty dinners I had in Curacao, the fish grill at the Mambo Beach restaurant was particularly good. My respected associates and I feasted on fishes, and no course was spared. Rather than say too much, I invite you to linger over the photos. Enjoy.


The menu, caught that day and served by the 100-gram chunk.



The barracuda, of course, was at the top of my list. What else?


Potatoes, cole slaw, mackerel, snapper, and a big hunk of meaty barracuda. Your services won't be needed today, tartar sauce.

Who likes fish? These guys!

Dessert: Vanilla ice cream dressed with caramel and toasted nuts.

Drink: coffee with Bailey's. I gently escorted the whipped cream to my ice cream, where it belonged.

The dinner wrapped up very nicely my first week on the island. I thought the restaurant was very accommodating, letting our group eat in board shorts and t-shirts. Being on the beach, they're willing to put up with some sandy toes...

Speedy Delivery: One of My Favorite Pizzas

Honestly, if I were to open a restaurant, I'd like to have a specialty pizza joint. Brick ovens, indoor and outdoor seating, good for lunch or a low-key romantic dinner. Mostly I'd like to play around with different experimental ingredients. But here's a combination I can stand behind:

Greek-style chicken pizza. Yeah, I might be stretching the authenticity, but when working with oil, olives, and feta, I feel like I can take artistic license. This is what I use, layered in the order given:

• Crust, well oiled and seasoned to taste
• Sliced or finely-chopped garlic
• Julienne sun-dried tomatoes
• Fresh baby spinach leaves (eat your greens, kids!)
• Mozzarella. Don't go too crazy, we're not done with cheese yet
• Diced feta
• Sliced kalamata olives
• Diced grilled chicken
• 425 degree oven for about 12 minutes
• Slice and serve with a sprinkle of basil

The tomatoes get chewy and tart under the spinach, the spinach stays moist under the cheese, and the feta toasts ever so slightly around the edges. Don't hold back on the wine.

Hamburgers! The Cornerstone of any International Diplomacy

In my current job, I spend a lot of time traveling. I get to see places where I never imagined I would visit, and interact directly with people with highly varied lifestyles and histories. I think I never shared a stronger bond with these people than when we were able to come together around food. No matter the background, the dining room is one area where we all connect.

I returned this weekend from a fortnight in Curacao. There, my compatriots and I were having a conference with members of the Coast Guard of the Netherlands Antilles & Aruba. As the station at Hato employs native Curacaoans, Dutch navy, and civilian Canadian pilots, this group was even more international than I'm used to. The conference was very productive, but everyone was looking forward to Friday, when Mr John Yoblonski (of Crawdad Boil fame) had promised to give everyone a hamburger cookout.

The tradition started when he and I went to Colombia, and when the facilities and ingredients are available, he's kept it going as a gesture of goodwill between nations. I won't divulge his special recipe, but it did involve me chopping up an obscene mound of garlic.

Mr Andrew Schmitt took care of the accompanying veggies, setup, and running raw and done burgers to their appropriate stations. The NA&A CG took care of beer. The burgers were succulent, with a rich garlic flavor that was not overpowering. The Dutch had them with a curry-infused ketchup that's a speciality on the island, but I prefer only onions. A properly-cooked meat needs no sauce.

As a special treat, one of the Curacaoans from the air station crew brought in homemade iguana soup. He made the soup from a dozen wild iguanas that had been shot and butchered that day. The iguanas were left in pieces on the bone and their juices created the broth, added to which were potatoes and other fresh veggies.


Since Summer 2007 I had been aching to try iguana meat, and finally this was my first chance! The flesh is tender and pink, tasting like a blend of fish and pork. The black, scaly skin is technically edible, but tough in most areas, so no one objects if you discard it. I loved it, and I see no reason that it shouldn't be on everyone's barbecue this Summer.

Greece: the cradle of civilization, and salad!

As a bachelor foodie, one of my life's difficulties is that when I cook it's usually for one, and I'd better like the leftovers. So it's a good thing when I have a dish I don't mind devouring on a daily basis. This one is a perfect example.


Greek salad. It's Spring, and I've been jonesing for fresh, crisp veg, hence the generous portion. Romaine lettuce (don't be shy, chop it into big pieces), tomato, red onion, kalamata olives, feta cheese, dressed with olive oil and vinegar to taste. I've also opted for sliced grilled chicken. For some crunch, throw on a mild crouton or crushed pita chips.

Of course, this salad is brain-dead easy. But I must emphasize just how perfectly balanced it is in flavor, texture, and beauty. The colors dance on the plate. The ingredients are crisp, supple, succulent, rich, mild, sweet, salty, and tart; every bite is a unique combination of these elements but it always works.

I wish I could remember the first time I ordered this salad, but I do remember that when I've eaten it in Albania it was excellent. If you're a restaurant in the Durres beachfront you can't miss. But don't fall for one of the misguided attempts they serve in Turkmenistan. To be safe, just don't go to Turkmenistan. I'd also like to thank an old friend for introducing me to feta cheese: Nathaniel, you're a good man.

Many bubbles make tickling: a new sake, get!

Today I had the urge to drink sake. Nothing special, but I had shoyu chicken in mind and sake would be the right wine to accompany the meal. Look what I found at the store:

Kawaii, ne? This carbonated, imported sake is intended to be served chilled, like a beer. I'm always up for new things, so I picked one up (along with a bottle of the regular stuff, just in case.)

The sake is smooth, with a fruity, pear-like tone. The fizz is present, but not overbearing; just enough to feel like you're washing something down. But it quickly becomes evident that this is basically a cheap sake with not much of a kick. It is a sake wine cooler: a low-gravity alternative to beer. This is a sake that should be enjoyed outside; try serving it at your next sakura-viewing party and teriyaki grill. However, at six dollars a bottle it seems almost too gimmicky for its own good, and I can't help but feel that I didn't get quite what I paid for. But what is booze but folly in a glass?

The Bachelor Gourmet/Cranberry goat-cheese pork chops

If I have one goal as a food fan, it's to raise the bar for bachelor food. You know: take-out and delivery stuff, frozen dinners, ramen, leftovers you bring back from the visit with Mom... It's all tasty, but I think we single guys can do better. I love fresh food, and I don't think it has to be complicated or hard.
To that end, I present tonight's dinner:


Pork chop stuffed with goat cheese and cranberries, with lime-pepper asparagus and garlic-mozzarella focaccia. Here's a closer look:


Here are my dude-friendly instructions:

• Get some goat cheese (it's a soft white cheese that comes in little packages) and dried cranberries
• Mix them together in a bowl. Use as many cranberries as you want to eat. Just mash it all together with your hands.
  
• Cut a pocket into the side of the pork. Not a flap, not in half, but a pocket.
• Stuff the pork with the cheese and cranberries
• Close them up with a toothpick. Notice the spillage in the photo? You wanna avoid that.
• Rub the chops on both sides with olive oil and black pepper. Don't go nuts with the pepper.
• Broil the chops for 5 or 6 minutes on each side.
• Eat the chops.

Like I said, not hard. I think the meal might have taken 30 minutes from fridge to plate, tops. It's not fancy, but it's delicious. I happened to feel like eating pork, and I wanted to jazz it up some. Really, "this might taste good in that" was the whole concept. Enjoy, bachelors.

Popping the Cork/Crawdad Boil and Cauldron Bubble

Welcome to my new blog, Low-Hanging Fruit! In this blog, I'll do my best to express my personal interest in food and drink. Last February I took a two-week trip to the San Francisco/Sonoma area and I felt inspired by the area and some visits with friends to write about food. I'm moving back to Northern California this Summer, and I hope I can keep this blog updated with regular posts of any new things that I eat, or especially, wine that I drink (hence the title.) Maybe I'll even throw in something I've made, now and then. I'm not a food professional, just a devoted fan.

Though I had planned to launch this blog in Summer, I'd be ignoring the opportunity to write about a few things I'm eating now in Virginia. Specifically, I can thank Mr John Yoblonski for some of the best food I've had while I've lived on the right coast. This man is a food professional. Last Friday night he treated a group to a crawdad boil. It's a recurring event, this being the first of the Spring season, and they never disappoint. The meal is remarkable because it doesn't seem to be possible on the small scale; it always feeds a crowd.

The apparatus required, coupled with live ingredients makes the cooking a spectacular feat. But the service is pure brutality: crawdads, mushrooms, onions, potatoes, lemons, sausage, and corn-on-the-cob are piled onto a paper-lined table, having macerated for hours in their mutual juices, generously enhanced with Cajun spices. The diners serve themselves hand-to-mouth from the mound. Everything is whole, and the flavors burst. The crawdads themselves surrender their tails without resistance, and their heads yield rich juices and a few morsels of tender meat. I manage the spice with bites of potato and swigs of a sturdy ale. It's a feast. I urge you not to overlook the mushrooms; they are a secret Ambrosia.