Food descriptions in Munisch och Garmisch, Deutschland
huge Turkish sandwich stuffed with lettuce, tomato, fresh parsley springy and green, hot sauce, yogurt sauce, onions, root vegetables roasted and fried, wrapped in a soft bread, like a large, flat pita
blood orange juice, washing over tongue with tang and ache and lust, deep release
fresh-squeezed orange juice, pulp excited jostling in the sweet liquid sunshine
tomatoes red on the vine, waiting ripe and heavy, expectant, in the rough wooden bowl
brambér jam is thick and startling! more flavor bursting and somersaulting than expected, dark and airy at the same time, tangy and bright but also musty and sacred (blackberry jam)
frambér jam is like sauce, or pie filling (strawberry)
hazelnut sweet bread, coated with sugar
strong strong strong, thick coffee at früstück
loose-leaf Earl Grey tea, aromatic and cutting
pretzel and bright orange cheese dip – strong, aged, like a shockingly sharp cream cheese, topped with red onion and green scallions
carrot, apple, ginger, orange juice – overwhelmingly sweet and full of eager carrot pulp
“classic chocolat” creamy sweet clouds of cocoa-filled warmth
a sandy, bitter, and rich “butter” that I guessed to be tamarind paste, but turned out to be tahini date paste, and now I’m wondering what tamarind paste tastes like
white, bloated sausages, large and phallic, floating in water. Chris and I were a bit too repulsed to try them
white, slightly sweet grits, thick and sticky
Tag: food writing
On Banana Bread
My grandma can only eat unripe bananas because of this special diet she’s on. So, when the bananas got too ripe for her to eat, I made banana bread. Yesterday was tough for me because, the night before, I had a PTSD-related panic attack. The next afternoon, I was still dealing with the residual effects of my nervous system getting completely overwhelmed. Baking is often the only thing that keeps my body regulated on days like these.
I used Ruth Reichl’s recipe for Devil’s Food Cake, and totally revamped it to create an incredible baked treat with no added sugar. The sweetness comes just from the milk, butter and bananas. The whole thing is almost gone – my grandma and I have devoured it over the past 24 hours. I will admit that this banana bread was pretty much what we ate for dinner last night.
Here’s the recipe:
1 cup milk
2 tbsp almond flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cloves
2-3 overripe bananas
½ cup butter (1 stick) – softened or at room temp
3 eggs
1 ¾ cup flour
1 tsp almond extract
2 tsp vanilla
1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
Optional: replace half of the butter with ½ cup apple sauce
Preheat oen to 350 F.
Heat milk in a small pan until bubbles begin to appear around the edges. Remove from heat.
Put almond flour and all three spices into a small bowl. Feel free to go overboard on the spices. I always do. Slowly beat in warm milk (I just used a fork). Let cool.
Partly mash the bananas with a fork. Then cream the butter into the banana mash mixture using the same fork. Beat in the eggs, almond extract, vanilla, and apple sauce if you’re using it (again, all you need is a fork). Add milk mixture.
Mix remaining dry ingredients together and gently blend into butter mixture. Do not overbeat.
Turn into a well-greased 8×8 square pan, and bake 20-30 minutes, depending on how gooey you want it. 25 minutes creates a perfect, moist bake, but you could underbake even more for more gooeyness.
Eat it with your grandma!
Also, yes, I understand the irony of my grandma not eating overripe bananas but then eating them in a banana bread. Who cares. YOLO.
On Gratitude
Today, I drove 27 min to the library, so I could stop being so desperately bored. I’ve know boredom is supposed to be good for your creativity, because if your brain has room to wander, it is more likely to wander into something interesting. That’s true. I’ve had a lot of great ideas and breakthroughs in the last couple of weeks. But the less romantic truth is that, 84% of the time, a wandering brain just….wanders around aimlessly into absolutely nothing.
So I’m at the library, piling books into my arms like a fiend, getting so excited about all the different topics. Cupcake baking? Yes please. Bob Marley’s journey while recording Exodus? Yup, piling that on. Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert? Yes please. Memoir by Ruth Reichl? Mmmm yes. I even grabbed a synonym dictionary. I’m not even kidding. I saw this huge, old-fashioned book full of synonyms and thought I’d grab it for some light reading. I was PUMPED. Then, I picked up a couple books that my grandma asked me to get for her, and headed towards the check-out desk, stumbling a bit under the huge pile. I couldn’t wait to get home and read all of these books!
At that moment, the place went completely dark. I looked around, thinking stupidly “is it nap time?” Of course it wasn’t. Unfortunately. Then I got kicked out of the library.
It turned out that the power went out in the whole island of Key West. Before I got my library books!!! And now I was stranded out on the street, longing for all those books I was forced to abandon on a table inside. It was madness. Luckily, I had 5 dollars in cash and I was only a five minute walk from the key lime pie shop. So I went and got a slice (dipped in chocolate, on a stick). It was fucking delicious. It made me smile. I ate it as I walked back to my car to drive home.
Gratitude is like that. I was still PISSED AF that I had to go back empty handed, but then this little sliver of joy presented itself to me. Gratitude is noticing the unexpected gifts in ordinary life. I know gratitude isn’t always a piece of key lime pie. It’s not always that obvious. But the key lime pie is such a great example of how gratitude shows up in my life. It’s unexpected, hard-won, beautiful, tasty, and it gets me through. I’m not at the point yet where I can be grateful for hard things, but I can be grateful for the tiny moments that get me through the hard things.
I think boredom is on the docket for me again tomorrow. And I’m okay with that.
On Food
We sit by the ocean, sunglasses on, blessed down to our toes in sun. Hibiscus beer gives off a rosy glow from our glasses. The waitress places two metal trays in front of us, covered in salty, greasy fries and grilled fish sandwiches. There’s nowhere on earth as joyful as my body when I take the first bite. Flaky white flesh, tomato dripping with ruby juice, tiny green morsels of lettuce, covered with delicate layer of tartar sauce, and drizzled with juice from a bright yellow lemon slice. It seems impossible, but it’s really happening. I’m here, with you, and I’m in my body. I exist. I love.
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Siena Facciolo 