What's in season

[rikita]

you know, yellow snow isn't really snow. it is lemon icecream.

[bixaorellana]

Thanks, Rikita ~~ now I want to try some as soon as possible!

[rikita]

good. i hope you get good snow in mexico. btw, near my train station there is a huge poster on one house advertising tourism in oaxaca.

[bixaorellana]

It will amuse you to know that ice cream is generally called "nieve" around here, even though nieve (water-based frozen confection) and helado are two different things. If you come visit, Rikita, I promise I will buy you whatever color nieve your heart desires. Oaxaca is known for its nieves, with every stand producing its own. Think about this every time you pass the train station, okay?

[rikita]

i will do so. especially since the poster with all its palmtrees and blue sky on it, is now covered in snow...

[bixaorellana]

I guess you're not much in the mood for something cold right now. I await your input in the sausages thread.

Here's a nieve stand set up for some event. "Sambor's" probably means "Sanborn's", a boring restaurant chain in Mexico, although there isn't one in Oaxaca. No idea what flavor that would be.

[rikita]

there is a sausages thread? i will stay well away from it... sausages are one of the few things i don't eat...

[Deleted]

You are a weird German then.

[rikita]

i am the only smart german. all the other ones are just sausage eaters.

[bixaorellana]

Gad ~~ the next thing you know, she'll be insulting potatoes!

Look out, Rikita -- the Empire could strike back!

[rikita]

oh, i like potatoes... so i wouldn't insult them. my bf doesn't like them particularly though.

[bjd]

There is delicious sherbet in Ecuador called "helado de paila". It's a specialty around the north, in Ibarra.

Actually, I went on here to tell Imec that today I got about 3 different advertisements from local supermarkets -- all of them are having specials on fresh foie gras. The top quality one is 25€/kilo, the less fancy one (tout venant) costs 18€/kilo. Lots of other duck stuff available too.

[Deleted]

Are you going to use DHL or Chronopost to send us some?

[bjd]

I already made my foie gras for this year. If you want to taste it, you have to come to Toulouse.

[Deleted]

Oh damn, just when I have a trip planned to Dunkerque.

[bjd]

You would rather be hit with herrings than eat foie gras?

[Deleted]

Well, so far I've done one but not the other.

[bixaorellana]

The brassicas were well featured at today's produce market, although I didn't buy any.


I opened one of the mandarins and took a bite, then immediately rushed it to the patio table for a photo. It was so good, I was afraid I'd gobble the whole bunch before I could get a pic.









I've only had these purple sweet potatoes the way they make them around here -- boiled, & served with syrup. I want to bake these & maybe drizzle some garlicky olive oil over them, along with salt & pepper.

[imec]

bixa, what colour is the flesh of those potatoes?

[bixaorellana]

I'm disappointed! There are some sold around here which are very purple, and I thought this one would be reddish or purplish inside. As soon as I read your post above, I cut & photographed one. It's not a nice crisp picture, but the color is accurate:

[lagatta]

Just so I don't have to have them with syrup!

Although it is very mild here - above freezing - NOTHING is in season now.

Perhaps if the farmers could have known winter (so far) would have been usually milder than Paris, they'd have kept more hardy veg in the ground. Lots of storage vegetables, the rest mostly imported now.

We did have a couple of killing frosts though, that even this year they don't get in Paris, though they didn't last long.

[bixaorellana]

I guess "kissed with frost" -- desirable for such vegetables as brussel sprouts, for instance, is not the same as "killing frost", huh?

[lagatta]

Big difference between say -2 and -20c... The latter kills the cells of the plants, so they get all limp and die.

[bixaorellana]

Yes, the freezing causes the water in the cells to expand and burst the walls.

[hwinpp]

Avocados plentiful here, and cheap.

I ordered a huge glass of avocado smoothy this afternoon. Paid under 30 cents.

[Deleted]

Jan 27, 2010 15:08:44 GMT hwinpp said:

Avocados plentiful here, and cheap.

I ordered a huge glass of avocado smoothy this afternoon. Paid under 30 cents.

Love,love avocado smoothies! Haven't had one in a real long time...hmmm.

Some of today's market in season features:

[bixaorellana]

I went to market today too -- the same things are in season here as in Casimira's & HW's posts, along with the brassicas, sweet potatoes, and mangoes. Lots of the new crop of garlic, but onions are expensive right now. We never see the pencil-type scallions here. I found eggplant again , and again I was the only person buying it.

[hwinpp]

That tray of strawberries just bowls me over, Cas! They were cheap in VN, they grow in the Central Highlands and get exported all over Southeast Asia.

[Deleted]

I think that Nha Trang was where I discovered avocado smoothies in 1997 -- ice, sweetened condensed milk, and a avocado in the blender.

[Deleted]

Feb 3, 2010 10:29:20 GMT hwinpp said:

That tray of strawberries just bowls me over, Cas! They were cheap in VN, they grow in the Central Highlands and get exported all over Southeast Asia.

They are beautiful to look at HW but,I have to say they are not quite juicy enough yet...I bought two pints (at $2.00 USD per) and am glad I didn't buy more, as they are still a bit hard,bordering on crunchy. I think these are hydroponically grown because I can't imagine that the strawberries from the ground survived the severe frost of two or so weeks ago especially over on the north shore.