long story short. My parents are predictably unpredictable. They showed up in Sarasota over the 4th of July weekend for a weeks stay. We went to Columbia‘s for a belated birthday dinner. Spanish-Cuban. I love it. They have already headed back to Colorado.
realized I have had good intentions to post but have been a little out of control and just winging along. We headed to Sarasota on the fourth. It happened in a funny and typical way… I woke up Wednesday (pre-4th) and thought we should go to Sarasota for the weekend. Z’s aunt and uncle live there and I decided it was alright to leave Walter at home alone. Through a series of phone calls we found out it would be alright for us to go and headed out for the weekend on Saturday morning. Sarasota is a couple of hours from Orlando and can be reached by the Sunshine Skyway which is an incredibly tall bridge over Tampa Bay that makes Z nervous to drive over. We had a nice low key restful weekend shopping and hanging out at the beach in the rain walking up and down Lido key. We walked to St Armands circle in the rain before the boat races and had breakfast sitting at the tiny counter in the tiny Blue Dolphin Cafe.
z and nick fished in the surf during sunset on st pete beach. They caught a small, 20″ or so, shark. I’ve heard it tastes like scallops but we caught and released it. We have taken a break from really major cooking while my sister and her husband and kids spent time here, favoring more of the burgers, picnics and pizza. We are back to our usual tonight and had comforting and luscious bowls of cauliflower gruyere soup at home.
Z fishing in the surf with Nick at sunset on St Pete Beach. Just wait till you see what they caught. We spent a while (not exactly we, but I was there, floating on a noodle) tossing the net catching minnows in the afternoon. There are good and bad things about all of this. The Memorial Day weekend had free (no license needed) fishing declared by the governor. Good News. The fishing was free because of the impending oil slick. Bad News. I really pray that they cap (cleanly) the well soon and that this summers’ predicted hurricanes don’t push the oil onshore. I feel for the fishermen in Louisiana. It may change the way we view seafood and the bounty of the gulf.
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we ate at xoco which is Rick Bayless’ little sister restaurant to Frontera and Topolobampo in Chicago and were totally enamoured with the amazing Mexican streetfood. So, our offering for E are empanadas which are little baked (or fried) pastries filled with whatever you have on hand. It could be a bit of leftover braised meat or some vegetables and cotija but ours are filled with eggs and oven roasted poblano peppers. We took a hand from Goya and bought the pastry and ours are baked and not fried. Rick’s were a lot more tender and the poblano flavor was more pronounced so we will have to work on that.
Roasted Poblanos
Preheat oven to 500. Line a sheet tray with foil.
Lay poblanos on the tray and roast on both sides for 10 minutes each.
Toss in a heatproof bowl and completely cover with plastic wrap. After ten minutes you will be able to ease the skins off and use them in eggs, on turkey sandwiches or best, in empanadas.
My Urban Pantry 