Culinary Adventures with Camilla

It must be funky citrus season. This week I finally saw Buddha's Hand Citron at Whole Foods. Woohoo. And my Kaffir limes were delivered from Beck Grove in Fallbrook, California. Beck Grove is a 100% organic citrus grove, owned and operated by Helene and Robert Beck. I order through Local Harvest . "It looks like a brain, Mommy!" It certainly does. Kaffir lime not only looks distinctive but its aroma is so unique. I would say its a combination of lemon, lemon verbena, and lime. Its flavor, well, Jake called it a 'super citrus.' Oddly, it doesn't really taste like it smells. Kaffir lime and its leaves are a traditional flavoring in Thai, Indian, and Indonesia cuisines. We decided to put some into our cookies of the holiday season. Recipe to come! For now, this is what it looks like on the outside... ...and on the inside. Have you ever cooked with Kaffir limes? What did you make?

We play with our food! How can you not when it looks like this?!? If you've been following me for awhile, you'll know that if it's weird or rare - especially a fruit or vegetable - I'll buy it. So, when I saw a few Buddha's Hand Citrons at Whole Foods last week, I looked for the gnarliest, most-fingered specimen and plopped it into my cart with a grin on my face. Though my Eat a Rainbow class was on the white, black, and brown week, I brought it in - just to see their reactions. Buddha's Hand resembles something that might have surfaced from the benthic zone or something that should be entombed in a jar of formaldehyde in a collector's basement. But it's a wildly gorgeous citrus fruit that has no juice and no pulp; it's used strictly for the pith and rind. And the scent...it's an alluring blend of citrus and rose. We love it! Select a fruit that is fragrant, firm, and bright with plump fingers. Avoid Buddha's Hand with shriveled ...

Unlike most of our other countries in this cooking adventure, where we travel vicariously through regional and national dishes, we have actually been to Costa Rica. We spent 10 days there during one fall break to celebrate both my parents' birthday. It took us three plane rides one way and four plane rides the other, but we ate and adventured all over the country to make it all worthwhile. So, this post will be a recounting of some real culinary adventures. Whenever we travel, we try - as much as possible - to become local. We shop at local markets, we eat at neighborhood restaurants when we do eat out, and we frequent the fruit stands on the sides of the road during our day trips. It's a great way to discover what is fresh and local in the area. Within minutes of arriving at our home-away-from-home, Riley was across the street. In a tree. Pulling down guavas for us to eat. They were delicious. On our first day, we hopped on a bus to the central market where we saw som...

These are all photos of funky fruits from my trip to Costa Rica a few fall breaks ago. Okay, so this isn't really a "book club" in the sense that it's not a club. It's just me, bolstered by a resolve to read more this year and read things that matter to me. Top of that list: food. No surprise there, right? My pick for the month of February was Adam Leith Gollner's The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession. This journalistic foray into all things fruit ran from historical to erotic and back again. While his descriptions read like full-color fruit porn, sometimes in a somewhat off-putting manner, I devoured his accounts of the truly fruit-obsessed such as the fruitarians who eat nothing but fruit, the fruitleggers (fruit smugglers, yes, really) and the fruitmafia (kind of self-explanatory), and the fruititects. I just made up that word, fruititects, but what would you call someone who builds a fruit? Have you ever heard of a g...

If you've been following me for awhile, you know that I'm attracted to the odd and unusual.  If I see something on a menu that I've never tried, I'll order it.  When I travel, my eye automatically falls on the strangest shaped fruit at the fruit stand. "What is that?" is typcially followed quickly by "I'll take two. Thank you." Apparently, that habit has rubbed off on my kids. When we were visiting the Hilmar Cheese Company, Riley danced up to me with a jar.  The fruit inside was pouch-shaped, a dull orange, and suspended in liquid. Though I don't often buy fruit in a jar, I was intrigued. "Mom, look, I found a new kind of fruit. Have you ever tried this?" I peered at what he was holding: Chilean Carica. "No, I've never heard of that." "Can we try it, please?" "Of course."  So, I happily forked over some cash and let him buy it.  Later that evening, we opened the jar, drained off some of the ...