Nourishing Recipes and Wellness Guides for your Mind, Body and Soul
This is my favorite quesadilla.
Maybe it because I’m Indian… Maybe it’s because I love to eat Mexican… Maybe it’s because this quesadilla tastes like I’m eating eating a cumin and coriander spiced Indian chaat in a warm black bean Mexican corn tortilla… I’m not sure really what it is, but there is something magical about this dish that makes me want to make it, and eat it, over and over and over and over again…
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One of the funniest sketches on the hit TV series “Portlandia” is when the two stereotypical Portlandians sit down at a restaurant to order a chicken for dinner, but interrogate the server on the the chicken’s LinkedIn profile before they are willing to even consider ordering it. Welcome to the locavore movement, Pacific Northwest-style.
Portland is the epicenter of the locavore movement, a place where your chef, cook, baker, barista, ice cream scooper, have hunted, gathered, farmed, foraged, and sourced the ingredients from within a 100 mile radius to produce the “artisanal” delight that you may be consuming after having carefully considered whether your conscience, moral compass and personal digestive system enzymes allow you to actually eat it.
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On a recent evening I found time to do something I hadn’t had time to do in months – flip on the television. To be more precise, I tuned into one of the more mainstream food channels. The show, “Man vs. Food” celebrated extreme eating and focused on the host sourcing and devouring, often with frightening (and nauseating) speed, the most fattening, calorie-dense, processed foods on the planet. If the producers’ goal was to demonstrate virtually everything wrong with our society’s relationship with food in less then thirty minutes, they did a fine job.
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Our local farmers’ market just ended for the year. Every Sunday Simi would hop on her scooter and we would walk on down to the park where our amazing farmers and vendors, our local restaurateurs, and our master gardeners all gathered to share a Sunday afternoon with us… There were childrens’ tables with crafts and healthy snacks, there were chefs doing demos based on cuisine from local eateries, and most importantly there were some AMAZING food trucks we salivated over while waiting in line for lunch.
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I have been waiting for local corn to come into season to take advantage of this recipe again and to share it with you. This dish is explosive in flavor, captivating in color, and tantalizing in textures. It takes beautifully to being passed on a platter or served individually plated as an impressive entree. And as ambitious as the venture in creating it may be, it’s worth the energy on sheer presentation value alone. Time after time this unconventional combination of ingredients comes together as a symphony of southwestern flavors leaving even the best quesadilla recipes behind in the desert dust.
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There’s something about Mexican food that speaks to the soul in a deeply satisfying way. Entertaining and family gatherings are always a little more exciting when there is some Salsa music playing, Sangria on the table and a plate full of enchiladas. And while it’s all fun and games when the party is on, when it’s over we’re usually left with a heavy feeling… from all the cheese, guacamole, and chips sitting inside…
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Over the past decade tortilla soup has become a popular dish on restaurant menus and dinner tables all across America…and while there may be hundreds of variations of the recipe, virtually every one uses most of the same simple yet flavorful ingredients.
This soup we have now been making for years, after several attempts, having finally found the perfect balance between the tomatoes, tortilla and veggies… The aromatic spices and warmth of this soup make it a wonderful dish to transition from late fall into winter.
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Ballard is one of our favorite neighborhoods in the city. The streets are lined with funky clothing, toy and book shops, coffee houses, tea stalls and many of the city’s famously popular restaurants. It was at a farmers market in Ballard, when we first moved to Seattle, that we first tasted this delectable quesadilla…
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