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Tag Archives: United States

My Very First Thanksgiving, My Very First Surgery, And A Mini-Survey Of Thanksgiving Traditions

25 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by Kiri W. in Fridays - First-time Food Experiences, Holidays

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Tags

Fruit, Poultry, Sweets, Thanksgiving, United States, Vegetables

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m German. Want proof? Check out my dazzling Dirndl-action!

Obviously, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving per se in Germany, although there are harvest festivals (which are not a big deal and which don’t involve turkey). So when I moved to the United States in 2005, my then-girlfriend-now-wife’s family graciously welcomed me into their home and shared their traditional Thanksgiving with me. What can I say? It was wonderful. Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, fresh cranberry sauce made in an ancient meat grinder, fresh baked bread, and most of all, my mother-in-law’s unbeatable, incomparably delicious stuffing (bread, celery, sausage) and her famous chocolate-pecan pie. And pumpkin pie. And ice cream. I met other members of the family, had a wonderful time feeling at home away from home, and I ate, and I ate, and I ate.

Curiously, that night I woke up in horrible pain, which didn’t subside. When the tight, convulsive cramping in my right lower abdomen wouldn’t subside, my father-in-law first suggested appendix issues, then scratched that since the appendix is located on the left side. He gave me Tums. They didn’t help. When I didn’t get better the next day and following night, my mother-in-law and wife took me to the emergency room, where I was X-rayed, poked, prodded, and finally diagnosed with a collapsed gall bladder filled to the brim with gall stones. Turns out high fat meals can trigger attacks. Go figure. They wanted to operate then and there, at which I burst into a teary-eyed, stumbling explanation that, look, this was Kansas, and I had mid-terms in Ohio coming up, my first semester in America, and we have plane tickets already, and my wife has to go back, what will I do? Well, the doctors gave in, let me fly back to Ohio with instructions to immediately go to the ER there.

2 days later I had outpatient surgery. Before the surgery, a smiling Russian second-in-command surgeon asked “Ahhh, gall bladder, is from baby?” “No,” I replied, “is from turkey.” (Well, in all likelihood it was from the stuffing or the pies, but hey, I was under duress). When I woke up, I found out after 2 more shots of morphine that I lack morphine receptors. Since I didn’t stop convulsing in pain, the nurses fed me a cookie, gave me a painkiller to swallow, and I was much, much better. Two days worth of chicken broth and a very coddling girlfriend later, I was back to normal, passed all my midterms with an A and craved chocolate-pecan pie.

Each year, I get asked which organ I intend to lose this year. Ah, Thanksgiving. I loved it.

Now for a bit more interesting fare, brought to you courtesy of the suggestion by wonderfully helpful Oh Cake!. I went and queried friends, colleagues and acquaintances about their Thanksgiving food traditions, and where their families originated from. I sampled English, Irish, German, Danish, American Indian, Swedish, Hungarian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Scottish, Italian, Spanish, Slovenian and Vietnamese, from 5th generation to directly immigrated like myself.

What I found was that the vast majority closely adhered to the gold standard – turkey, gravy, pumpkin and/or apple pie and/or pecan pie. Popular items all across the board were stuffing (bread or cornbread based), green beans, potatoes or sweet potatoes, mashed or scalloped, or with marshamallows, squash dishes and cranberry sauce. But there were a few standouts and particular stories I enjoyed and thought I’d share:

“My grandma also makes homemade egg noodles (roll out the dough and cut the noodles by hand with a knife). She makes them that day and they dry for hours on the dining room table. All the women sit around and cut them as they dry enough while chatting. And the kids always run by and steal the uncooked noodles.” – German descendent tradition

“With my sibling food allergies we didn’t have an extravegant thanksgiving, most of my childhold we had lamb cooked in a crock pot with banana squash, yams, and rice.” – British/German descendent

“We always do different things. I’ve made traditional japanese, indian, american, mexican and chinese food for thanksgiving (not all at once)” – Swedish descendent

“Wine-soaked cranberry sauce and tarhonya (a Hungarian noodle dish). Before my great-aunt died we had her amazing bread, now we buy baguettes to eat with our butter (did I mention the butter? we really, really love butter in my family). My grandmother makes sós stangli (Hungarian cheese straws), which get passed off to friends the next day because we’re all tired of them (she does nothing, ever, besides bake these). For dessert: Hungarian pastries, and a new version of rice pudding every year.” – Hungarian descendent, many recent immigrants

“My family goes with each family part making turkeys in different ways, but usually roasted and stewed. Also rice with different kinds of beans. In Puerto Rico pies aren’t very popular, but instead we make pumpkin flan. My aunt will make some escabeche of green bananas. – Puerto Rican studying abroad

“I try to make something native american, specially mayan or aztec, to show respect and appreciation.” – Mexican-American immigrant

“Butternut squash, corn, homemade bread, parnips – cut legthwise and fried in butter, rutabegas – boiled and mashed, sweet potatoes (no marshmallows!). My family is really adamant that we stick with very traditional food – Lots of root vegetables and what I would think of as late harvest food.  – Irish descendent

“An old Scottish recipe that has been in our family for years and its pretty simple – oatmeal, butter, and onions” – Scottish descendent (I am particularly excited about this stuffing because I was promised a sample!)

“Growing up, my family incorporated a lot of Italian-American food into Thanksgiving. We always had a lasagna and antipasto earlier in the day before the actual “traditional” dinner of roasted turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes etc.” – Italian descendent

“Empanadas as appetizers to honor our latin roots and I also insist that she make a tomato/onion/lemon juice “dressing” which you can drizzle on the turkey in addition to regular gravy.” – Spanish descendent

“Duck (or turkey, but only if the kids insist)” – Vietnamese immigrants

“We use mashed green plantains to make the stuffing, add some seasoning, usually a lil bit of bacon, garlic and some people like to add raisins.” – Puerto Rican studying abroad

I hope you enjoyed this mini-study of Thanksgiving traditions! I, for one, would like to try almost all of the listed menus! Who knows, if I stay here permanently, maybe I’ll add a German twist on my Thanksgiving dinners, too. Are there any specialty items inspired by your family’s roots that simply must be there come Thanksgiving?

The Nosh Box – A Comfort Food Truck!

17 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by Kiri W. in Restaurant Reviews & Eating Out

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Tags

Cleveland, Confort Food, Food, food truck, Meat, Nosh Box, street food, United States, Vegetables

That’s right, Cleveland has still more food trucks to offer. Today: the Nosh Box, a truck serving mid-Western comfort nosh with a Tex-Mex twist to hungry Greater Clevelanders.

 

The Nosh Box is owned by Sandy and chef Kelly Waddell, who post the day’s menu and location the night before or morning off on Facebook and Twitter. Unlike some of the more exotic menus I’ve highlighted before, the Nosh Box is all about those indulgent comforting items:

 

They’re most famous for their Clevelander – fried bologna on Texas toast with all the fixin’s and the legendary Double Wide – Texas Toast topped with two kinds of cheese, bacon andmac’n cheese! Not necessarily a truck to recommend to dieters and health food lovers, but great for that indulgence we all need sometimes. Or as the Nosh Box chef put it: “Someone asked my if I had a lean body type. 🙂 I told them yes I do, I lean on anyone that gets in my way !”.

For my first nosh experience, I had a naan-bread pizza topped with fresh marinara, parmesan and mozzarella, onions, tomatoes and mixed greens:

 

It was

One of the greatest things about this truck is their special deal: bring back a reusable container and get a free drink! Now that’s a wonderful and generous offer to reduce waste.

Bottom Line:

Thanks to Kelly and Sandy for serving in freezing temperatures!

MotorMouth Food Truck – Globally Inspired Gourmet Dishes On The Road

10 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by Kiri W. in Restaurant Reviews & Eating Out

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Cleveland, Fish & Seafood, Food, food truck, Local, Meat, MotorMouth, street food, United States, Vegetables

My love affair with Cleveland’s food trucks is intensifying, and so I bring you yet another gem on wheels: the MotorMouth Food Truck, another less-than-a-year-old truck serving (Greater) Cleveland. Their menu and location gets posted the night before or early in the morning on Facebook and Twitter.

This truck, owned by Chef Rusty James Phillips, serves globally inspired gourmet dishes, and when they say gourmet, they sure mean it. Just have a look at their menu when I visited!

I mean, come on? Roasted duck tacos? Butter-poached cod? Normally way above my price range for a casual under the week lunch. I was very, very torn on what to order, but finally settled on the butter-poached cod, served with tamarind-spiked black beans and yellow rice:

The cod was buttery, flakey, melting in your mouth, but what really made this dish was the contrasting side – Spanish style yellow rice with black beans, onions, red peppers and a very healthy kick of tamarind. Incredibly flavorful and spicy, I probably could have eaten 3 to 4 servings, easy. One of the best rice dishes I’ve had in a long, long time. Absolutely excellent.

Of course I couldn’t resist dessert. Enter their famous Mexican brownie:

This pretty much blew my mind. Not at all your typically intensely sweet brownie, it reminded me of chocolatey gingerbread, probably due to the spices. These treats were made by Becky’s Pantry with Abuelita chocolate (unsweetened Mexican chocolate, quite different from what we’re used to here) and smoked chilli powder and topped of with toasted slivered almonds. Very, very intriguing, and a huge serving to boot.

MotorMouth tries to buy as many of their ingredients from local farms, and always has a vegetarian option available.

Bottom line? Generous portion sizes, very fair prices, and out-of-the-ordinary gourmet foods with unusual ingredients prepared by a very nice team. 5/5 from me, with brownie (haha) points for enduring the rain to serve hungry mouths like mine. I hope I get a chance at those duck tacos soon!

Thanks to the MotorMouth Food Truck team for serving University Circle folks!

Which menu item would tempt you? What not so common dishes would you love to see at prices like these?

Healthy Foodie… Eats Locally?!

17 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by Kiri W. in Mondays - Healthy Foody Eats Locally

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

CSA, Food, Fruit, United States, Vegetables

While I love traveling, I am neither a travel guide nor stinking filthy rich, and therefore have to eat mostly at home. To keep food exciting and support local farmers, I decided, at the urging of my wife, to join a CSA this year.

A CSA? What? Yeah, that’s what I thought. CSA stands for community-supported agriculture, and generally works in a way that an individual pays in advance for the season (typically June through October) to obtain a weekly share of the farm’s harvest. Shares tend to come in “single” or “family” sizes, and most farms expect you to come pick up the share during a designated time period.

The benefits of joining a CSA are vast: You support local farmers and jobs, you ensure responsible farming techniques to protect the environment, you usually save a good deal of money for super-fresh, gorgeous produce (my personal savings amount to somewhere between 10 to 20 US dollars each week, and I get a family share), the produce you do get it fresh, often organic, much richer in nutrients than store-bought fruit due to freshness and no time spent in travel, and, probably the biggest tickle factor for me, it challenges you to eat in season, discover new produce and mix up your weekly cooking. Since you get a share of whatever is harvested, you don’t chose what fruit and vegetables you will get, and it’s typically a big surprise box. Then you need to adapt, try new recipes, discover new favorite foods, and have a foodie-gasm, if you’re like me! For some more info, see this great post.

I joined a set-up called City Fresh that is slightly different than regular CSAs in that it’s run by the New Agrarian Center, a local food initiative that buys produce from 30 farms in a 75 mile radius around Cleveland, where I currently live, and offers pick-up of your share at a variety of locations close to your home (11 locations in my county, alone!). That’s really the deciding factor for me, because I don’t own a car and can’t easily visit farms that are a minimum of 30 minutes driving time away. My stop is only 15 minutes by foot from where I live, and is run by an awesome volunteer team:

I’ll be adding a “local food” section on Mondays that will show some of the most beautiful produce I get every week from my CSA and include recipes and recommendations on how to recreate some of my favorite foods encountered on various travels at home. Are you a member of a CSA? What would you like to see featured? Any other great local food recommendations you want to share? I’d love to hear all about it!

 

The Foodie

  • Kiri W.

Welcome to Healthy Foodie Travels!

This is a food blog focusing on my food experiences while traveling, as well as my recent ventures into locally produced food while at home. I always try to keep health and weight maintenance in focus, but there will be treats!

Currently I'm going through my China adventures, but keep an eye out for soon-to-come entries featuring the holiday season in Germany/Europe.

This blog updates every M/W/F with local food/travel log/first time food experiences.

I hope you enjoy the blog, and I'd love to hear feedback and suggestions, or to try and answer any question you may have!

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