Darice de Cuba

Since I live in The Hague and in my own apartment I have grown more and more interested in cooking. I am now comfortable with having guest for dinner and cooking something nice for them. But I’m just scratching the surface of the possibilities.

Little by little I buy quality kitchen utensils and cookware, I have a good chef knife(ask my fingers), a Le Creuset iron pan, a double bottom stainless steel skillet and a wooden cutting board.

To be a foodie is not only to like food, but to be interested in it. Just as a good student will have a thirst for knowledge, a foodie wants to learn about food. A foodie will never answer the question “What are you eating” with “I don’t know.”

Also important food ingredients, I’m always looking for stuff you don’t find in the supermarket here. For provolone cheese I go to a little Italian shop(which recently closed). Recently I ordered smoked garlic and Tabasco Chipotle online, I had been looking for that particular Tabasco for months, they don’t even sell it in Aruba. So I was happy when I found a Dutch website that sells it. But the most difficult is finding export cheese like English cheddar, the American Monterey Jack, the Italian provolone, Bel Paese or Fontina. Those are cheese that can make your dish so much better. Imagine a sandwich with chicken in tomato sauce with melted provolone on top…heaven!

Since I’m back home from the hospital I have been cooking everyday, it helps me build up my condition by being busy doing something. And cooking always relaxes me and helps takes my mind of things. With my new diet(no raw food) I had to find a way to make a well done steak without drying out the meat. After online research I went with a rib-eye steak marinated for 30 minutes in fresh lemon juice. It came out very well an not too dry for a well done steak.

Today was a real challenge, I had 2 sea bass fillets with skin still on. I almost never cook any fish, but cod fish or just canned tuna. But I made a point of learning more fish dishes.

Sea bass with risotto

Season sea bass with salt and pepper. And cook it on the skin side till the skin is crunchy. Flip over and cook 2 more minutes. Depends how thick the fillet is.

For the capers sauce I went on taste, in a food mixer add capers, a small garlic clove, lemon juice, extra virgin oil and a teaspoon mustard. The taste was too strong for me thus I added Greek yogurt to soften the taste.

I made a risotto Risi e Bisi(minus the pancetta and parsley) style but instead of peas I used asparagus.

The result was good for a first try at sea bass!

When I saw that Coudal had finally launched their Field Notes Brand websites I immediately ordered a pack of 3 field notes. Not that I needed them but I like hoarding notebooks, I have several Moleskines lying around or being used as an occasional diary, or to jot down some ideas once in a while.

So I had those Field Notes lying around waiting to be put to use. When I was released last week from the hospital I was told I have to keep track of my temp, weight and blood pressure daily and take them with me to each doctors visit which right now is twice a week.

So I decided to use the graph paper Field Notes, I drew a table to keep all data nicely organized. I even drew a red cross on the cover to be able to identify the notebook right away. Don’t pay attention to the bad drawing, I have shaky hands from all medications I’m taking.

So now each time I’ll be flipping out a cool vintage notebook while at the doctors office to show my medical data. I even like using the black bic pen you get with the notebooks even though I like using quality pens, but with shaky hand writing with a fountain pen is almost impossible.

I’m now thinking about hacking the notebook to add a Moleskine like back pocket to keep cards in it with questions for the doctor. I even want to buy a nice colored carton paper, cut it up and glue it on the inside of the back cover. Just have get somebody go buy the supplies for me.

Another time I’ll write about how the iPhone is my second half, especially when staying at the hospital with no computer.