agua de jamaica

So we had a dinner party.
For now, this will have to stand in for my fulfillment of the salon challenge. And by stand in, I mean hold its place until I can follow my own rules, which I didn't quite.


My friend Jen and I made this dinner together, and fifteen minutes before everyone arrived, when I fully realized that we only had about half the food completed, I took a swig of my pre-guest arrival drink, and I asked Jen, "Will I ever learn to do this better? More efficiently? On time?" She answered that where would be the rush in that?

Last year we did a similar dinner party together, a benefit for the school like this one. That day was a bit of a mess, and by the moments before everyone arrived, we were actually sprinting through the kitchen. This time we didn't sprint, but I certainly lost a fair amount of hope, and I accepted the fact that dinner, in my hands, will almost always be later than intended.  Lucky for all of our guests, Jen's hands were involved too, and so they didn't go hungry for too long.




As soon as I let go of any hope of keeping it together, of course I started to have a much better night. Our intent was a Mexican feast, and all night we pressed tortillas and squeezed limes. And because the flavors might just come back into my mouth as a recount the menu to you, I will do my best to reconstruct the affair. Ready? Or rather, should I say, hungry?

We started out with rhubarb margaritas and chili lime popcorn. The margaritas, entirely responsible for my next day headache, were made with rhubarb ginger syrup.  They were worth the headache. For the popcorn, I melted butter, and whisked it together with lime juice, salt, and chili powder. That whole delicious mess went on the popcorn.

Then there was soup, a fish soup mostly from Diana Kennedy that was made from chicken broth, vegetables, and fish that I had brought back with me from Maine the day before. We floated little circles of lime in each bowl, a trick that I will be sure to repeat again.

And then there were pork tacos, but I've already told you about those. That time turned out to be practice for this time, and they were just as delicious. We pressed corn tortillas as we constructed the tacos. And then there was shredded pork, and radish and white turnip salad, queso fresco, creme fraiche, and guacamole.



Then there was salad, and because all the produce for the whole dinner was from Jen's farm, this was no slouch of a salad. She and her husband grow magical lettuces. I'll leave it at that.


Then, because we hadn't had enough homemade tortillas, we made more, and we topped them with swiss chard and garlic scapes, then Oaxaca cheese, a bean and corn salsa, and a fried egg.

 This was my favorite course to look at, but I was too full to clean my plate.

 
Then finally there was flan, which almost wasn't at all.  I burned the caramel twice, and then I had to send Joey out to buy more sugar. I had never made flan, and as we coated the pan in caramel, I couldn't figure out how this would actually work or why it would soften into the sweet brown liquid I knew it should. We stuck that custard in a water bath and said a prayer. And although we could have put it into little individual ramekins, I had the image stuck in my head of Penelope Cruz turning over a big flan in Volver, a move I found so inspiring and deeply sexy that I thought it needed to be attempted. If you haven't seen that movie, see it just for that moment. You'll like the rest too.

When we went to overturn that flan, Penelope Cruz was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it slid right out of the pan without turning over, but we cheered anyway because it was flan despite our failings.

 To drink through the night we had cheap Mexican Beer (I'm partial to Tecate in a can), and agua de jamaica, or, if you don't want to be saucy about it, hibiscus tea. I've had a big beautiful jar of dried hibiscus that Jen brought me back from her last trip to Mexico, and the last of those precious flowers went into our drink.

Again, absolutely worth it.

Before you go lamenting the fact that you have no friend just returned from Mexico bearing dried hibiscus, I'll tell you that it's not so hard to find. Some bulk herb sections in the store will have them, and if not, the online marketplace will help you out. In a pinch, however, a few Celestial Seasonings red zinger tea bags will do the trick here.

Agua de jamaica is sweet and sour, dark red and wonderful, and exactly what you need in your refrigerator on the hottest of days. That, and some cheap Mexican beer.


Agua de Jamaica

adapted from Diana Kennedy, The Essential Cuisines of Mexico

2/3 cup dried hibiscus flowers
4 cups water
1/3 cup sugar, or more to taste
1/4 cup fresh lime juice

Combine the hibiscus and 3 cups of the water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat. Stir in the sugar and the remaining water, cover, and let sit for 4 hours. Strain out the hibiscus flours and add the lime juice. Adjust sweetness to taste.
Agua de jamaica can also be topped off with a little bubbly water if you prefer.

Because this is functioning as my salon challenge until I get to the real one, it's a perfect time to tell me about your dinner party! Anyone take the challenge out there?

carnitas

 Due to the events of the weekend, I ended up with a very large pork shoulder in my refrigerator. A VERY LARGE PORK SHOULDER.  It had been rubbed with every chile in my spice drawer, and it took up nearly half a shelf of the fridge. There had been a dinner party in the works for Saturday night, a benefit for Joey and the girls' school that involved the pork shoulder, and when the kiddo got sick, the plans changed. But Sunday morning, I awoke, bleary-eyed and relieved at Sadie's lack of fever, to see the pork shoulder sitting there. And it was a little tragic--all that meat and no big party to enjoy it.

That problem is easily solved, of course.

There is nothing like a sick kiddo getting better to make me feel endlessly thankful for everything.

And so, all day long, we shuffled around in our socks. Joey made art. I organized my desk. Maia played piano. Sadie ventured outside and Rosie spun her around on the swing. 

And through it all, that pork shoulder in its evening gown of spice made its way through the day,  bubbling away in a gentle bath of chicken broth.  An extra chile and a bay leaf were tucked into the pan as its only accessories. And the smell fed us, good fat and red chile and the aroma of an anticipated full belly.

At four o'clock we transferred the pan to the counter, and the shoulder fell apart as we snuck bites of meat. I turned the heat up on the spicy stocky sauce, and it steamed out its water until it was dark and thick.   Shredded meat in the sauce, homemade tortillas, radishes.

 Lissa and Mark and Will showed up. Joey and Mark talked about baseball and The Kinks. Will entertained the girls as only a 15-year-old boy can.  Lissa started the guacamole.

We didn't even need forks. And Sadie, cheered by the fact that I had told her she was in the clear to go to school the next day, had her third pork taco.

I was having tea with a friend of mine last week who's in her early twenties. She's living alone, on the brink of some transitions, and she's working a lot out right now. We were talking about the feeling when you are medicating yourself with food, and she said she'd been struggling with that in the past weeks.  She always been a food lover--all through her teens she cooked and baked and traveled and enjoyed food. And as we talked, I was thinking about that phrase, "medicating with food." I've certainly used it, and I've absolutely done it. And I think that so often, it's looked at as a negative thing. We need love, or inspiration, or comfort, and so often food does the trick. And in times in the past when I've done this more, I know that I've started to hate food and to feel like I should avoid it altogether.

Nasty cycle, that one. 

And so, as we ate our cake and drank our tea, we talked about how important it is, through that frustration, to keep loving food. To remember that there are very few things so wonderful as a really good meal.

I think that after all, food really is medicine.

Carnitas
serves many, for days

One 5 to 7 pound pork shoulder (ask your butcher or farmer for the pork shoulder, usually they hide it in the back and give it to you for not much money)
1/2 cup chile powder, or some combination of chile powders, if, like me, you collect chile powders
3 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoons salt (or wood smoked salt, if, like me, you collect unusual salt)
fresh ground pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups chicken stock
1 dried d'arbol chile
1 bay leaf

Three days before you intend to cook it, rinse and dry the pork shoulder. Combine the chile powder, oregano, salt, and pepper in a bowl, and then massage the mixture into every sensual curve and crevasse of that beautiful piece of meat. Keep rubbing until the entire thing is very covered in the mixture, and then rub a bit more just because you might be enjoying yourself. Put the shoulder in a casserole dish, lightly cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for three days. Admire it regularly over that time. It will make it more tender in the end.

Take the pork out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for 30 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

In a large cast iron skillet or roasting pan, heat the olive oil.  Drop a bit of water in the oil, and when it sizzles, it's ready. Put the pork shoulder into the pan, and let sit for about 3 minutes, or until browned. Repeat with the remaining sides of the shoulder as much as you are able.  Remove the shoulder from the pan and let it rest on a plate.

Pour the chicken stock into the hot pan, then bring to a boil.  Scrape any brown bits that have gathered in the bottom of the pan so that they can incorporate into the stock.  Return the pork shoulder to the pan, and tuck the bay leaf and dry chile pepper into the stock. Cover the pan (if the pan has no lid, cover with tin foil.) Transfer to the pan to the preheated oven, and cook for 6 hours. 

Remove the pan from the oven, and transfer the meat to a plate. If it falls apart, you've done well. Put the pan, uncovered, over medium high heat to reduce the stock to a sauce. Let it bubble away until reduced by about half. 


Meanwhile, shred the pork.  Stir the meat into the sauce. 

Invite friends. Ask them to bring cheap Mexican beer. (I prefer Tecate in the can.) Serve on corn tortillas with the toppings that inspire and excite you, including, but not limited to, guacamole, radishes, fresh lime juice, salsa, creme fraiche, queso fresco, lettuce, pea shoots...