Sampling Salvadoran Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sampling Salvadoran Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

One day when I driving my daughter Florence home her charter Waldorf School in Pacific Grove, California, I noticed that the Migeuleño Restaurant on Broadway Avenue (doubly listed as Obama Way) had a Salvadoran Restaurant on it.

I had always thought Migueleño was a Mexican Restaurant.  I did some research on the food and saw that the cuisine is very different from Mexican food.

I called my editor at the Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 100, 000) and asked if I could do a review of Migueleño with its new-to-Monterey cuisine.  The editor said this sounded like a fun article and assigned me to do the following article.   I took Florence along with me and Laurent to Migueleño:

Hold the Fire: Papusas and Fried Yucca are just two Salvadoran Treats at Migueleño

The map of El Salvador pointed on the outside wall of the Migueleño Restaurant on Broadway Avenue in Seaside, California made visions of tamales decked out in banana leaves swim before my eyes.

The fact that most people are unfamiliar with Salvadoran cuisine probably explains why Migueleño serves Mexican and Salvadoran food along with 11 different seafood entrées in order to keep the business going for 18 years.

I picked up some new vocabulary words as I ordered two Salvadoran meals – papusas, chicken tamales, fried yucca with chicharron, and fried plantains.

The pudgy papusa was four inches wide.  This round, tortilla-like confection was stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, corn, and cheese much like a grilled cheese sandwich, except much tastier.

The papusa came with its own mild, cheese dipping sauce.

The chicken tamale was wider and much lighter than its typical Mexican cousin.  A generous dose of rendered lard no doubt accounts for this lightness just like it does in the best flaky piecrusts.  What really struck me was how moist it was, including the chicken breast meat.

Most tamales are a little dry in restaurants, because they are frozen in large quantities and make them steamed to order.

This sweet-tasting papusa almost had a corn-pudding consistency.   Migueleño serves nice side dishes such as vinegary, cabbage and carrot coleslaw that has a hint of chili bit to it.

Migueleño’s refried bean, which do not fill half the plate, taste of pork, which I like.  I suspect the cooks used some pork bits along with good rendered lard in these beans.  I have eaten refried beans without getting fat for years.

Since my dining companions had opted for Mexican food, I started my second Salvadoran dish of fried yucca and chicharron.  I must admit that I had no idea of what yucca was when I bit into my first deep-fried morsel.

It reminded me of very light, slightly sour potatoes.  I squirted some lemon juice on the rest of the yucca.  It tasted even better that way along with some salt.

On top of the yucca pieces was a mound of chicharrom, the savory remains of deep-fried pork rinds.  The rich chicharron-fried yucca combination was balanced out by another generous helping of tangy coleslaw.

I wonder if yucca and pork is the equivalent of fish ‘n’ chips in El Salvador.  It certainly merits undivided attention – eat it on your second trip to Migueleño.

The beverage list offered a few items to discover as well.  Negra Modelo from El Salvador was advertised, but my husband Laurent tried another amber beer brewed in El Salvador called Regeia.

Neither of us expected to see a 32-ounce bottle on the table.  Described as smooth lager on the label, Regeia reminded me of a thirst-quenching Budweiser.  It tasted great with the yucca and chicharron.

I tried fried plantains for dessert along with a generous helping of sour cream.  The brown exteriors revealed yellow, tangy interiors tasting like green, verging on yellow bananas.

Palm oil must have given the plantains the fried-in-batter taste that felt even more decadent when I dipped them in sour cream.

Florence said the carne asada she ordered tasted too much of lime, but I liked that taste with the charred steak.  Migueleño marinates carne asada in lime juice with salt and pepper before grilling it, so the citrus flavor melds with the charred meat.

American families and Salvadorans filled the restaurant’s tables and bar.  Each glass-topped table had a vase with fresh flowers in it and under the glass was a lace-trimmed cloth touting “Best Beach in Central America – El Cuco, located on the Pacific Ocean.”

El Salvador’s third largest city, San Miguel, is home to this beach.  The residents call themselves “Migueleños.”

It was fun to try tropical cuisine without having to get on a plane.

End of Article

Migueleño’s in Seaside, California is still open.  It is on Broadway Avenue (Obama Way).  The street has been torn up for two years, but it is worth the wandering around to get to the restaurant.

There is another Salvadoran Restaurant on Del Monte Avenue in Marina, California called El Salavadoreño Pupuseria.  I have not been there yet, but obviously Salvadoran food is gaining in popularity.

Products for making Salvadoran food at home can be purchased at El Rancho in Marina, Mi Tierra in Seaside, and Mi Pueblo in Seaside.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Sampling Indian Food for Divali with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sampling Indian Food for Divali with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

My family has had fun living in Virginia and California as a military family.  We learned about Divali, the Indian Festival of Lights in Virginia thanks to our Indian neighbors. 

In fact, my fondest memories of being a Navy wife in Norfolk, Virginia, home of the largest Naval Base in the world, was swapping Christian and Hindu sweets with my Indian neighbors as we celebrated our different religious traditions.

Everyone in our apartment complex was in the Navy except for our next-door neighbors, who were from India.  They always loved talking with my daughter Florence, since their own grandchildren lived “up North.”

At Christmas, my daughter presented them with a plateful of Christmas cookies – peanut blossoms with Hershey kisses, chocolate chip cookies, Russian tea cakes and so on, she proudly said, “I made these all by myself.”

The following year in October, our next-door neighbor knocked at our door.  She told us, “These are the traditional candies we eat on our holiday of Divali.”

We thanked her and ate everything in about twenty minutes.  I took the plate back in what I thought was a polite hour later.

Our next-door neighbor invited us in when we brought the plates back.  We told her how much we liked the candies.  We sat down, and she placed more of them in front of us.

We could not stop eating the candy that came in many colors with almonds and pistachios on top called barfi.

Indians cook this treat by evaporating milk along with sugar and ghee, purified butter.

They spread the mixture on a greased, round tray called a thali, and then, cut into it.

Other sumptuous goodies we ate included nutty ball bundles called laddoos made from fried semolina flour, sugar, ghee, milk, nuts, and carrots.

The only mouthwatering sweets, though, had intriguing sweet and savory syrup on them.  They did not know the name of the ingredients in English, but several visits to India’s Clay Oven (now closed) in Monterey, California revealed what these secret ingredients were: cloves, green cardamom, black cardamom, and bay leaf.

This aromatic syrup flavored sweet rolls called gulab jamun made from milk, flour, rose essence, and ghee as well as little balls that had sugar candy inside rasgoolas.

Cooks make rasgoolas with flour and chana, a soft cheese made by adding lime juice to warm milk and then straining it through a muslin cloth.

Cooks make balls with the dough, and then, soak them for ten minutes in the syrup.

My neighbor appeared out of the kitchen with a plateful of saucer-sized orange coils that are one of the most difficult sweets to make in the Indian kitchen – jalebis.  I bit into the cold, crunchy crust of my first jalebi to discover a rose-flavored syrup inside the coil.

The tricks to achieving this culinary masterpiece are a perfect saffron-flavored dough, a coil squeezer, and warm syrup.  Cooks deep-fry the batter in ghee, and then, place them in the warm syrup.

The coils absorb the syrup, leaving the one side crunchy. Jalebis stay fresh for only one day, so my daughter and I made sure that none were wasted.

I asked what Divali celebrated.  My neighbor told me that there were two Divali stories.  The first tells that the day honors the God Rama’s coronation after he had conquered modern-day Sri Lanka after being exiled from his home.

The second story relates that the god Vishnu killed a giant demon.  His people celebrated his return with lights and decorations.  The stories’ characters differ, but both recount victory over adversity.

“The name of the festival itself,” he continued refers to the little clay lamps with oil and wicks called “dipa” set up in a row called “avali.”

Together they form, the alternative name of the festival – “Dipavali.”

My neighbor said that Indians celebrate Divali by doing things such as buying new clothes, buy new accounting ledgers, and lighting fireworks.  Most importantly, Indians say prayers to Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, asking her to visit their homes.

I said, “I think Lakshmi has already visited me” which made the neighbors laugh.

Note:  Parts of this story were printed in The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200, 000).

You can sample Indian food at the Ambrosia Restaurant in downtown Monterey, California.  They have a nice lunch buffet and lovely dinners.  I like lamb vindaloo (spicy) and mango lhassis (mango yogurt drinks).  They also have lovely, bronze Nataraja sculptures located around the restaurant.

You can buy ingredients for making Indian food at home at the Asia-Pacific Market on Reservation Road in Marina, California.  They sometimes sell live crab, spices in bulk, and have tropical fruit for sale.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Sampling Baan Thai Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sampling Baan Thai Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I loved Seaside, California, my family’s first neighborhood, when we moved to the West Coast for its variety of ethnic restaurants.

I wanted my daughter Florence to try Thai food, so we went to Baan Thai when it was just opening up in 2000.  (It is still open 17 years later.)

On our first visit there, the walls were painted white and the glass over the pale green tablecloths gave off a slight glare, because there were no curtains on the waist-to-ceiling high windows that covered two walls of the restaurant.

I chose a corner table and studied the only decoration in the restaurant – an 8 ½” by 11” photo of what I thought was a seated Buddha or a person.  A tall, tapering crown that resembled Thai temple towers topped off this personage.

When the waitress came to take my order, I asked her, “Is that a man or Buddha in that picture?”

“Both,” she answered.

“He is our king.”

That was my first inkling that India had influenced Thai culture as well as that of China.

I gave her my order for panang curry not quite knowing what that was.  A series of five peppers at the bottom of the menu served as a spiciness (hot) guide for your order.

I chose the three-pepper variety.  The panang curry served with ridged carrots, corn, bits of chicken, and green pepper filled half of my plate.

A mound of white rice sat next to it with a twisted orange slice next to that for decoration.

The taste was citrus and hot.  It left a pleasant tingling taste in my mouth, but I was too busy at the time as a salesman selling Tibetan art, Russian icons, Ghandaran Buddhas, Thai and Vietnamese Buddhas, Indian Ganeshas, and Persian carpets in Carmel to delve into the ingredients in this delicious dish.

What I did do one night when I should have been researching another story was to look Thailand up on my computer’s encyclopedia.  I discovered that the Thai practice Theravada Buddhism, derisively called Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) by the Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhists of China and Japan.

In a nutshell, Theravada Buddhists seek Enlightenment for themselves whereas Mahayana Buddhists endeavor to become a Bhodsattva, one who can achieve Enlightenment, but who puts it off to help others attain Enlightenment.

Young Thai men I read in this article usually spend some time as a monk in the same way that young men in many countries spend some time doing military service.

I wondered if this was why the servers at Baan Thai seemed so unflappable even when it was busy.  Then, I went back to my other story and let my interest in Thailand hibernate.

I went back to Baan Thai and decided it was time to try something new when the waiter saw me and said, “Panang curry?”

I changed my order several times to yellow, green, and red curries.  They were all good and contained peppery, anise-flavored Asian basil.

I progressed up the chile chart for spicy additions to the dishes I ordered.  Sugary Thai iced tea made with condensed milk put out some of the wildfire situations I willingly undertook.

I read the cookbook Cracking the Coconut by Su-Mei Yu, who had “attended an exclusive boarding school founded by the Royal Court of Thailand,” according to the book’s cover. 

I made panang curry once at home to know how to make it, but preferred eating it in restaurants to support ethnic communities, especially my neighborhood.

In 2002, I took Florence out to Baan Thai for an early dinner after I had picked her up from her charter Waldorf School in Pacific Grove, California.  Baan Thai had prospered and had received excellent reviews in the local newspapers.

Landscape paintings were lined up along the windowless walls.  Lace curtains kept the sunlight’s glare at bay and big, color pictures of the King and his consort decorated the dining room.  Smaller pictures of dancers in tall, conical hats, boats in Bangkok, and elephant tapestries decorated the walls.

Behind my daughter was a picture of the one-tusked elephant God from India called Ganesha.  At the Asian Art Gallery, I sold tons of these little, bronze statues by saying, “Ganesha is the remover of obstacles.”

Everyone in business knows these are people who mess up mailroom procedures, invoicing, and inventory control in companies.  I think everyone in Silicon Valley has one of these statues by now.

Florence asked me, “How do you remove obstacles?”

I told her the kiddie version of Ganesha, “Ganesha gave up one of his tusks, so humans could read.  Basically, if you read well and know math very well, you will have a good life.  Lawyers have very big vocabularies.”

End of Article

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Teen in China, and Marrying France

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Chicago Thai Food Adventures by Ruth Paget

Thai Food adventures in Chicago for Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My childhood buddy and I took turns heaping thin, green chile rounds into our now forgotten dishes the first time both of us ate Thai food at the Thai 55^th Restaurant in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in 1983.

“I really don’t think you like spicy food,” I taunted as she placed a spoonful of peppers on her plate.

“You’re the wimp, Ruth,” she said as she placed another spoonful of the dark, green seedy peppers over her dish.  Was it Pad Thai, the stir-fried egg noodles?  I could not let that remark pass, so I helped myself to a few more spoonfuls.

We considered ourselves spicy superwomen after downing bowlfuls of hot sauce with chips at the Las Brisas Mexican Restaurant in Detroit where we grew up.  We emptied the glass container that held about ¾ cup of chiles.

I took the first bite.  A sensation like ammonia-flavored hot wax sent little needles of heat into every surface of my mouth and into my glass of water and chomped unceremoniously on the rice.

“Rice is supposed to help,” my childhood buddy ventured to say.

I ignored her and waved my arms to get the waiter’s attention.  He looked at me and started to come our way, but I could not wait for him to come to the table, go get water, and return.

I made what I hoped was the universal sign for water by cupping my hand and tilting it towards my mouth.

He understood and walked very slowly to our table with a pitcher of water.  I indecorously blew my running nose on my napkin and breathed in through my mouth to cool off my palate.  What was taking him so long?

When he finally arrived, he took one look at the green chiles heaped on our dishes and laughed.

“Those are very hot,” he needlessly said.

“Please leave the pitcher,” I managed to say before I snatched up the water glass.

I chomped on some more ice cubes, which seemed to numb the pain and what I thought was swelling under my eyes.  I could see the waiter laughing with the busboy in the back of the restaurant; no doubt talking about the pepper lovers in the corner.

My childhood buddy started to move the green chiles off to the side of her dish.  I crunched some ice before breaking the bad news to her.

“The juice is hotter than the peppers,” I said, feeling like a marathoner who has crossed the finish line before another runner.

“You’re just trying to scare me,” my childhood buddy said somewhat hopefully.

“Just try it and see,” I cackled before wishing her, “Bon Appetit.”

I poured another glass of water and felt the heat finally subside from my forehead.

Reason returned; I was no longer living for ice cubes.

My buddy, on the other hand, had just taken her first bite.  Her face turned crimson.  I offered no solutions to her problem and just laughed at her cruelly.

She grabbed her glass of water and looked at the pitcher.

“You drank all the water, Ruth,” she said with a scowl.  The waiter brought a new one and my buddy went through the same water drinking and ice crunching ritual that I had just done.

“The restaurant owners have not watered these babies down yet for the Yankees,” I said.

I knew my buddy was thinking, “This is another fine mess you have gotten us into!”

“Maybe the heat wears off after you get used to it,” my childhood buddy said.

“Let’s see who can eat the most bites before taking a drink of water,” she said, knowing that a challenge might get us through the meal.  We had each taken one bite of our meal so far.

For the next three hours, we alternated between fanning our open mouths and eating.  The chiles prevented me from tasting or remembering my food that evening.

“What were those chiles?” I asked myself for twenty years as I read cookbook Cracking the Coconut: Thai Home Cooking by Su-Mei Yu.  Prikk Namm Som in vinegar reminded me of my steamy evening eating “Thai Bird Chiles.”

The Thai 55^th visit encouraged me to check out the Thai Restaurant in my neighborhood with my daughter Florence – Baan Thai in Seaside, California.

End of Article

My family’s visit to Baan Thai in Seaside, California forms Part 2 of this blog series on Thai food.  Traveling with small children is hard, so I was happy I could introduce Florence to other cultures at restaurants in our neighborhood and by cooking foreign food at home.

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By Ruth Paget

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