The Fish Market of Tellicherry.

I have visited fish markets all over the world, in many different cultures, and love the vibrancy, the smell of salt and sea, the earnest looks of fishermen presenting their hard work for chefs and villagers each day. But for some reason, this fish market in Tellicherry, India made me sad.

I'm starting to look at fishing as something that will disappear, a way of life that is actually dying off. What will scores of fishing villages do? I am not opposed to fishing obviously—I am a cook and I love all fresh foods. But my knowledge of what's happening to the oceans is starting to make these sort of markets hard to swallow.

Having a soft spot also shows the terrible beauty of a freshly caught fish draping off the side of the counter with still brilliant eyes. A fresh death.

Fish have been a necessary protein for the people of Kerala. Their state is long and coastal. We can still watch the fishermen in their ancient boats with their nets that hug the coast. There is history here, of traders being blown off course from the monsoon winds, who ended up finding some of our most valued spice treasures.

Where will the modern world take them?

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Take a peak at some photos from Tellicherry's vegetable market on the PMCA facebook page. 

Alumni Story: Elena's Seventh Program

You could say that Elena Portoles wins the prize for PMCA's 'Most Frequent Traveler.'  Since 1997, Elena has been on almost every single one of Peggy's programs, tasting and exploring her way across Italy, Spain, Morocco, and just this last month—India. 

Here, we interview Elena in the midst of her seventh program with Peggy, India: Tasting Royal Rajasthan. Moments later, Peggy surprised her with the ultimate thank you gift for being such a loyal guest: an invitation to be her guest on the upcoming 20th Anniversary Program in June! Elena was stunned and replied, "Terrific! Elba is the only trip I haven't been on."

During this anniversary year, we invite all of you to send in your stories, impressions, photos, and memories from the road. Photos, videos, emails—we want it all! Your stories keep us inspired to develop new programs, and to bring new groups to these destinations each year. 

PMCA: This is your seventh trip with PMCA. What keeps drawing you back to traveling with Peggy? And can you tell us where and when you started?

Elena: I'm fortunate to be able to travel. Back at home, I love to cook and to entertain, and traveling gives me inspiration for new recipes to make for friends. The best part of the trip is coming home and re-creating the many dishes. My neighbors wait in anticipation for my dinners.

I started with La Cucina al Focolare: Cooking by the Fireside, Peggy's first program in Tuscany, in 1997. I was in Europe on business and decided to add a week's vacation. The ad in my favorite cooking magazine caught my eye—cooking in Tuscany. I was in! Liguria was my second trip with Peggy, and Sicily was my third. Morocco was fourth and Thailand was fifth. Spain was sixth, and now India is seventh! I always go on the first ones, the maiden voyage as it were. 

PMCA: What do you like about the PMCA approach? 

Elena: I like that we visit local towns and villages, where we are people to people. Non-traditional traveling interests me. I love to visit the markets, meet the cheese makers, the bakers, and see how things are made, which makes it a real culinary experience. 

PMCA: You've told us that you have no problem traveling alone, so why do you choose to travel with PMCA?

Elena: With PMCA, I always meet nice people with common interests, in a comfortable environment. It's relaxing and interesting at the same time. I also make my own time during the programs. I set my alarm, get up early and get out. I don't want to miss a thing.


PMCA: Do you have a favorite trip? 

Elena: No! I love them all. I belong to a gourmet club and I cook everything I learn on the trips when I get back home. When my friends ask me for a recipe I tell them, "That's a $6000 recipe!" [Laughs.]

PMCA: Peggy has a particular style of leading a program. What do you like about it?

Elena: Peggy is so caring, knowledgeable and interactive. There's a million tour companies out there, but I don't need to be hopping around. I know Peggy and her style by now. Her trips aren't sightseeing tours, per se. We focus on the food while taking in the culture at the same time. That works for me.

PMCA: What about this seventh trip? Are you enjoying it? During your trip in Morocco, someone asked you if you were going to join Peggy in India and you shook your head, "Oh no. I've been to India and don't ever need to go back." What changed your mind?

Elena: Oh, I'm loving it! I was here for work the last time and it was less than pretty. When I read the itinerary and looked up the hotels, I thought this trip looked wonderful and it has been. Lovely group and we have been so well taken care of. It's beautiful. It has been worth every penny!

PMCA: Anything else you would like to add?

Elena: Can't wait for number eight!

Culinary India: A Cooking Lesson with Salma Husain

Today I had a cooking class with Salma Husain, a Persian scholar, noted food historian, and the author of The Emperor's Table, The Art of Mughal Cuisine. 

In Salma's home outside of Delhi, I watched as she and her cook of 28 years showed me how to temper spices in oil, make poori, chapati, and roti, potato curry, chicken torma and pea and corn pulao. A full menu!

                                    

In between dishes, as the aromas filled the room, Salma stood by the stove and told colorful stories and antidotes about the ingredients and the history of each dish. As she pinched spices with her fingers, she said, 'There's a wonderful story about a cook I once knew in the south of India. She came into the kitchen and saw a spoon next to the spices. She said, What is this?! God has given hands to you! Use them!"

A few notes and lessons from Alma, that I jotted down in her kitchen. I'm sure that when I turn back to these pages of my journal in months to come, a fragrant smell of cardomom and fresh ginger will waft out of the pages. 

Cardamon powder gives a touch of the exotic. Green is for seasoning, black for tempering.

Different lentils are tempered with different spices. 

Red lentils: cumin and onion

Yellow lentils: garlic and red chili

Whole mung: ginger slices, onion, and broken whole chili

Mung lentil: clove

Fish and vegetables are mostly cooked in mustard oil.

Onion paste: Fry onions until brown and crispy. Blend.

Garlic and ginger pastes are just that; garlic blended whole and ginger blended whole.

"Food is never served on the table without being tasted. It can always be repaired."

"Food without history is nothing." 

Upcoming Program: Sailing and Savoring the Amalfi Coast

Sailing and Savoring the Amalfi Coast

June 22-29, 2012 

     

  Happiness is Sailing the Amalfi Coast with Peggy Markel's Culinary Adventures. Perche? 

5 Reasons....

1. We have the best Captians. Educated (Captain Nardella has a PhD in wild orchids!), Professional, Experienced.  

2. The Mediterranean has a higher salt content, which brings out the natural sweetness of the fish. Frutti di Mare...fresh squid, octopus, vongole veraci, cozze!

3. Pizza. Gelato. Caffé. Sfogliatelle. Delizia. Torta Caprese. 

4. Excellent fresh virgin olive oil, fresh lemons from the tree, good salt, fresh herbs, squash blossoms, mozzarella di buffalo, pomodorini, pepperoncini.

5. History. The oldest Maritime Republic. The Odyssey. The Sirens. Sophia Loren. Cary Grant.

  

Including the Bay of Naples and the islands of Procida, Ischia, Capri and when the wind is with us, Ventotene.

 

         

For more information or to reserve your room, please email us or call our booking coordinator, Merete, at 303-910-0897. 

  

Program includes:

~  Accommodations aboard a 52-foot Hanse 540e sailboat

~ Most meals and beverages 

~ Cooking classes and visits with local chefs, artisans, and producers 

~ Neapolitan love songs, moonlight, Mediterranean sea, poetic adventure       

   

$4495/person, double rooms only 

* one single spot available for a traveler open to sharing a room with another guest 

  

 

 Photos by the talented Ashley Mulligan.    

Alumni Story: Natalie's "Rule of Yes"

When describing our culinary adventures, we always tell potential guests to "Expect surprises!" but it can be hard to explain the exact quality of unexpected moments that pop up throughout a trip.

When Natalie Beck, a friend of a friend from Boulder, pulled Peggy's phone number out of her pocket and joined the 2010 Amalfi sailing program last June, the course of her European vacation was changed and she jumped head-first into an experience that she describes as "something out of the movies."

"I was living by the rule of 'Yes'," Natalie explains, "No matter what it was, I decided to say Yes." Saying yes became infinitely easier as she traveled with Peggy among new Italian friends. "I was treated like family by everyone I met, the whole time, because I was with Peggy."

Watch Natalie retell a few of her favorite moments from the trip in this short video clip, filmed at Cafe Aion in Boulder:





During this 20th Anniversary year, we invite you, our alumni, to share your own stories with us! Send us written memories, photos, and video clips of the stories that followed you back home. 

Aniello Sposito: The Poetic Portmaster of Amalfi

Call it love at first sight. Call me a sucker as it happens more times that my fingers can count. Sometimes it’s romantic. Sometimes it’s not. But magic it is.

Being on a sailboat is one of life’s great feelings of liberation. Pulling into port has it’s own metaphor, right out of The Ancient Mariner. The going out to sea.. the coming home. There is a sending off and a welcoming back that is as potent as an in-breath and out-breath of a meditation. 

Puttering into the port of Amalfi the first time with our Captain Antonio, I felt an unexpected experience of immense respect. The Port Master, Aniello Sposito, held his gaze with Antonio for the longest time until our boat had been steered into the proper spot. (If you know anything about boats, this is tricky at best, but risky as well with the neighboring real estate.) 

At 63, Aniello is as nimble as an amphibian, jumping in and out of the water for tangled anchors, hopping from boat to boat to secure the fenders, tossing the ropes to the first mate to draw the boat up to the dock and to secure with sailor knots. I have been out of many ports where the marina guys do the same work, usually lazily and not with much presence. But Aniello was different. His work was easeful, skillful and dare I say? Sexy. His job is an opera del’arte a piedi nudi (a barefoot work of art).

A quiet man with deep, piercing eyes, his presence has more than dignity, he has heart. He nods knowingly when the boat is secure and shakes hands with the Captain. He raises a welcoming hand to the others on board, then sets off. It has felt similar to a blessing; an Ave Maria of sorts. As we settle in, put out our gangplank and set up for an aperitivo, Aniello is already back with a bottle of Limoncello. His bright eyes flash a smile as he hands over the bottle, the other is over his heart. We ask him to stay and join us. Even though he nods positively and politely, he is gone again. The next thing we know, he is back with a few boxes of fresh pizza from his favorite place.

This sort of generosity is not uncanny for the Costiera Amalfitana or the Neopolitan way, yet the vein of his intelligent humility is exceptional. His job and the people he meets who recognize this mean the world to him. His father and his grandfather were port master before him. The respect he has for them is

sacred. He carries a brilliant lineage from times gone by. He will tell you stories of how his father treated everyone fairly and respectfully from Fiat giant Agneilli, President Kennedy, down to the local fisherman. Aniello is also one such man. He will tell you everyone loved his father. If we were to say, ‘everyone loves you too’, he would then again, hand over his heart, say, “my father was ‘un grand oumo,’ a great man, a great man. I am simple”. He also says this is a different time. People don’t have the same ‘simpatia’, a mutual feeling of respect and recognition, like they used to. He is married to a German woman a few heads taller than him and has triplet boys. “They love the work,” he says, “but I don’t want them to stay here. They are educated and should take a different route.”

Meanwhile, his sons come and go, each one of them blonde and tan and more handsome and capable than the next. At 17, they will always have Amalfi as home and their father as an inspiration of how to live a meaningful life with meaningful work.

Aneillo stops by again with a present of large, yellow, sfuso amalfitano lemons that we will perfume our water with and make a sauce for spaghetti al limone. We say goodbye, eye to eye. I feel like I am in the presence of an unsung legend. Another one of the greats who are still present, but in transition with their work. I don’t leave without giving Aniello a jar of homemade jam. I am now prepared for the exchange of gifts, something he isn’t prepared for, but accepts willingly.

Now I get the hold the gaze of the port master as we sail out into the bay until the harbor is no longer visible. He does not move.  

* Photos by Ashley Mulligan. 

Recipe: Tagine of Blue Foot Chicken and Dried Cherries Soaked in Wine.

The tagine is my choice of an unglazed clay pot,  especially in winter. Its terracotta top and bottom create the perfect environment for developing slow-cooked flavor.

Being a great fan of Morocco, I most often stick to the traditional dishes. Moroccans themselves are quite creative, but the buck stops when it gets too out of the box or out of range for ingredients out of their reach.

Last week, I was in the mood for chicken, but not. Neither was I in the mood for red meat, having renounced it for three days. A small discipline, but a fine time to perhaps think out of the box. Some sort of wild fowl, or cornish game hen would do the trick, but they didn't have anything at my local market. What they did have was a frozen "Poulet Bleu," a white Canadian variety with blue feet, taken from the French Poulet de Bresse.

"Blue Foot Chicken is characterized by a red comb, white feathers, and steel-blue feet, which give the breed its name. The feet are usually left on for presentation." No blue feet were present on my frozen bird. Yet, the meat is noticeably darker and richer.

"Blue Foot are typically slaughtered much later than factory farm or free range chicken, being left to grow on their own rather than relying on force-feeding or power feed. Thus they require 12 to 14 weeks to reach market size, rather than the 42 days. No water is absorbed into the meat during the chilling process." Hmm...making them naturally plump.

The bird came home, along with a container full of dried cherries. My experience in Morocco has taught me that dried fruit and meat go very well together. Trying to deduce what flavors would combine well in this case, I choosing something equally as rich and dense in flavor, but which would lend some acidity.

A tagine almost always inspires Moroccan spices. Not afraid to experiment, I used ginger which I know goes well with any chicken, ras al hanout, because I thought the bird could stand up to it, a pinch of saffron because I was going exotic, and a touch of cinnamon and clove as the mystery ingredients, to add panache and enhance the cherries. The blue footless bird looked amazing in the tagine, marinated in a bit of extra virgin olive oil and spices. I landed a few sprigs of thyme on top just to add an herbal element.

To further gild the lily, I soaked the cherries for about a half an hour in some cabernet franc recommended by my new friend, sommelier Phil Morich, wine manager at Alfalfa's Market. They were added about half way through the cooking. I also used a splash of the wine as liquid to flavor the dish, something tradition does not advocate. Safe to say this idea is French-Moroccan fusion, of which there is a fair amount.

Almost all tagines cook for at least an hour, more depending on how gentle the fire. Tri-colored quinoa was my accompaniment, along with a spinach salad with thinly sliced red onion, dressed simply with course salt and freshly pressed olive oil.

My friend Virginie took a bite and said, "Oh Peg, it's a 10."I was rather pleased.

A culinary adventure, right here at home.


Tagine of Blue Foot Chicken and Dried Cherries


1 Blue Foot chicken
1 large onion
3/4 cup of dried cherries, soaked in wine of choice*
1 T dried ginger
1/2 t ras al hanout (Moroccan blend of spices)
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t clove
a pinch of saffron (soaked in 1/2 cup of water)
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

* Chateau Du Petit Thouars ~  Cepage Cabernet Franc
(read about them, quite interesting)

 
 Slice onions and set aside. Soak cherries in your wine of choice* and set aside. Slice chicken into parts and rub with olive oil and spices, salt and pepper. Put half the onions in the bottom of the tagine. Add the chicken on top and add the other half of the onions on top of the chicken. Add the sprigs of fresh thyme. Bathe the chicken in a splash of wine and add the saffron in it's water. Cover.

Cook tagine on a gas stove or over coals. When cooking with a clay pot, it's best to heat the pot slowly.
Start out slow, increasing the temperature until the pot has brought the food to a boil. Turn down to a simmer.  Let cook for 20 minutes. Check occasionally to make sure there is enough liquid to create steam and keep the chicken from burning.

Add the cherries and the soaking wine and let cook for another 20 minutes. Test for tenderness.

Dedicated to all of my fellow Moroccan culinary adventurers.