cia – Page 164 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Moules Marinieres

I love making this mussels dish because it only takes a splash of white wine and some herbs I usually have handy anyway.

Ingredients:
1 bag of mussels, about 2 pounds, beard and barnacles cleaned and scraped off
1 cup dry white wine
2 shallots, chopped
2 tbsps unsalted butter
a handful of flat parsley, chopped

1. Put the shallots and white wine into a large stainless steel pot. Add the mussels and cover. Steam them over high heat until the mussels have opened, about 5 minutes. Shake the pot to be sure that all the mussels are cooked.
2. Drain the mussels into a large bowl, saving the liquid. Discard unopened mussels. Return the liquid to the pot and bring to a boil. Add the butter and chopped parsley. Pour this sauce over the mussels and serve immediately.

Maple Syrup and Apple Cider Pork Loin

Adapted from The Complete Meat Cookbook

Ingredients:
3 pork tenderloins
5 cups hot water
2 cups apple cider
2 cups maple syrup
2 tbsps cracked black peppercorns
salt

1. Stir the hot water and salt together until the salt is dissolved. Add the apple cider, syrup and pepper. Cool in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.
2. Trim any excess external fat from the meat. Submerge the pork in the brine in a large bowl. Make sure the meat stays under the surface. Refrigerate the pork in the cure for 3 hours.
3. When ready to cook, remove meat from the cure and pat dry. Place meat on a roasting pan and broil close to the fire for about 10 minutes per side.

Tomato Cilantro Soup

Adapted from Mediterranean Light

Ingredients:
1 large can plum tomatoes with juice
1 bunch of cilantro, washed and tied with kitchen twine
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tsps paprika
juice of 1 lime
plain yogurt

1. Heat oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until softened. Add garlic, cumin and paprika, and cook 1 minute, stirring. Add tomatoes, 1 quart water, cilantro and season salt. Bring to a simmer, cover, and simmer 30 minutes.
2. Turn off heat, remove and discard cilantro, and blend with hand blender until smooth. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lime juice. Serve hot or cold, with spoonful of yogurt in each bowl.

Island Time on Roatan, Honduras

Before breakfast, we decided to run on the beach. Of course, I lasted for only two trips from the beachfront to the end of West Bay. After breakfast, I thought it’d be a great idea to bike around the area. We borrowed the Bananarama bikes even though it was already 85 degrees before 10am. Of course, I lasted one hill before I begged the Dr. to turn around and give up with me. We spent more time laughing at ourselves than the actual biking. After all that “effort”, we decided that the rest of the day would be spent under the shade, on the beach and near the water.

At La Palapa, the only thatched-roof beachfront bar on West Bay, we bought several beers during lunch while the cook fried the two snappers we caught the day before. She served them with fried plantains. For dinner, we returned and bought more beers. The cook fried the last of our catch, the grouper, with some fries.

The next day, we hired another water taxi driver to take us snorkeling. We couldn’t find Luna, the guy who took us fishing the day before, so another guy ripped us off by convincing us he was going to take us to the Blue Channel to snorkel. When he anchored the boat, I could still see the beach. This is Blue Channel?, we asked. For $50, we thought Blue Channel was far away, but we were already deep in vacation mode to even argue. We said bye to our money and snorkeled around the so-called channel. There were the usual fish: parrot, grouper and snappers. The water was clear and my vest kept me afloat. After only an hour, we asked to be dropped off at West End where we finally found some good food with our beers.

Walking down the main street, we saw a lady with a basket. We asked her what she was selling and she said she had chicken tamales with cheese and beans. They were soft tortillas instead of masa wrapped in corn husks, but for thirty limpiras, or $2, for three pieces, we were sold.
We sat under a tree at the beach and ate our first meal of the day. I was still hungry, so we walked a little bit more to find the fruit guy with the pickup truck. We instead saw a tent where another lady was grilling chicken. She was selling them with rice and beans for seventy limpiras, less than $4. I sat on one of her plastic chairs and the Dr. positioned himself on top of a crate. We shared a plate under her tent with a cold bottle of Coke. Our entire lunch was better than anything we paid $10 for on the island. Sometimes, street food is all you need to get a better sense of the local cuisine.

We spent more time on the beach the rest of the afternoon and savored our last full day in the country. We met our Bananarama neighbors earlier and found out that they were from Colorado. When we saw them later at La Palapa, we agreed to take the last water taxi to West End to eat dinner together and split a cab back after hours. We ended up at Velva’s where my meal was served in some salty tomato concoction. I had ordered a snapper, but they instead served me shrimps. After we ate, the four of us walked around to find a bar, but unfortunately everything was already closed. We paid $10 for a cab to drive us back to West Bay. Thankfully, La Palapa was still open. The owners were wrapping up a private party on the beach, so the bartender bought us a round of drinks and we enjoyed the last few minutes of the fire they built.

We flew out of Roatan the next day not knowing anything about Honduran culture and its people, but we were grateful for our time and for the opportunity to check off another Central American country from our list.

Fishing in Roatan, Honduras

Clink.
Clink.
Clink.

What the hell! It was 7am and the divers were already getting the tanks out of storage to prepare for the day’s dive. We would not be able to sleep in the following days because of the diving preparations each morning. Roatan is a diving community, but because we don’t dive–the Dr. became a certified diver a long time ago but has lost interest–we were more interested in snorkeling and just taking it easy. Bananarama Dive Resort is frequented by those who travel far to learn how to dive. We were just there because they had the nicest cabins for rent on West Bay, the more quiet side of Roatan island.

After some anemic eggs and sausage and tortilla garnished with a hibiscus flower for breakfast, we took a water taxi from the dock several yards away to go to the West End, the opposite side of West Bay. The entire island of Roatan is only 34 miles long and West Bay has the best beach, but West End is where the stores, restaurants and bars are so it’s teeming with life during the day.

We walked around to get a feel of the island. We bought some fruits from the guy with the pickup truck, canvassed prices for snorkeling trips and visited some gift shops. We were pretty disappointed that condos were being built all over the beach, some priced at $300,000. It’s inevitable, right? But when we were in Panama, the settlers were mindful not to build tall concrete buildings in the mountains or the beach. Roatan looked like it was just waiting to be the next Florida.

It wasn’t even noon yet and the sun was already out in full force. We settled for Creolan food at Bertie’s because the Honduran restaurant the water taxi driver recommended was still closed. The only problem was that the fried chicken we ordered for $8 did not taste Creolan at all. In fact, there was nothing Creolan in the menu. We would find out through our stay that food prices on the island range from $5 to $18 and those just include a small bowl of soup and a plate of fried fish with a sorry piece of iceberg lettuce they called salad. Alas, we’re tourists just like everyone else so we just had to suck it up.

Late in the afternoon, we hired this guy Luna to take us fishing for two hours. If we can’t get a decent meal on the island, well, we’re just going to have to catch it, right? We got in his boat and we asked where the bait was. We’re going to get it!, he exclaimed. We docked back at West End and we watched him wade in the water with his big kitchen knife, stabbing all the crabs he saw. With the crabs, we caught three small yellowtail snappers to use as bait.

We trawled in his boat for two hours, but the fish weren’t biting. We had to revert to the old-fashioned way and anchored the boat, waited for the smaller fish to bite and hoped for the best. Luna entertained us. His stories all started with My-uncle-this and My-uncle-that. He laughed like a maniac. We found ourselves laughing at him rather than with him. Later, when we told other locals that we had hired Luna during our first day, their reaction was always, You hired Luna?! Apparently, he’s notorious on the island as the town lunatic.

The Dr. got lucky and caught two yellowtail snappers right away. Soon after, we had a grouper. (Endangered, we know, but Darwin made a good point!) The sun came down fast after that. When we caught a slimy, we knew it was time to go back to the beach.

Back at West Bay after cleaning up for the night, we bought a Cuban sandwich, a plate of pasta and fish ceviche for dinner from the restaurant in the Mayan Princess Resort. No fish that night because we had three waiting in the fridge for the next day.