Spaghetti Aglio,Olio e Peperoncino

On the Amalfi coast, everyday provided another exciting round of flavours and sights. Lemons, the size of grapefruits were everywhere. The fresh leaves were used to wrap ingredients, infusing a dish with an enticing citrus aroma and flavour upon baking. Wrapped around soft raisins and tied, the leaves, left to dry, imparted sweet citrus notes to a lovely packaged snack. And Limoncello, that intense lemon liqueur was waiting in everyone's freezer.

One day, we picked pine cones in the woods above the city. Thrown in a fire, the cones burst open like a flower, revealing a warm pine nut in each of its petals. Heaven.

I had the best pizzas of my life there, and a dish of spaghetti tossed with olive oil-sauteed garlic and red chiles. Aglio (garlic), olio (oil) and peperoncino (chile).

It's the only dish from my Amalfi travels that I'm able to reconstruct at home. The ingredients are readily available, simple to make and don't cost a fortune. I return to it time and time again. It's a quick lunch, dinner, a great hangover cure and a profoundly comforting dish.

While the spaghetti is cooking, roughly chop 4 or 5 cloves of garlic. Add the garlic to 2 to 3 tablespoons of fruity olive oil in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once the garlic starts to dance, add chopped fried red chiles - with the seeds - and fry a few minutes more, carefully not to burn.

Drain the pasta and toss it with the aglio, olio and peperoncino mix. Salt to taste. Add some grated parmesan or romano cheese. Toss. Enjoy.

The garlic-chile-oil ratio can be adjusted to suit your sensibilities. Some days I crave more garlic, more chile, other days, less. Sometimes I add chopped parsley, but mostly not. I've ordered it in restaurants, but it never comes close to my own technique. It's a personal thing, one that's imbued with sweet travel memories. That's never on a restaurant's menu.

Black Beans

Top: dried avocado leaves, right: toasted ground black beans and left: ground avocado leaves

It was quiet that morning except for what sounded like a beaded curtain blowing in the breeze. The place was Santiago Apoala, north of Oaxaca City, a fairly remote village, perched 1,970 meters above sea level in the Mixteca high sierra.

While waiting for breakfast of scrambled eggs mixed with the red flowers of the colorin tree, picked just outside the hostel, I went to investigate the sound.

Two straw mats were laid out on a dirt road and a group of people were sifting their harvest of black beans. Because of the strong wind, the villagers scooped the beans and let them fall, allowing little bits of dried straw or other debris to blow away. No one was saying anything. Just the rhythmic sound of the beans falling, over and over again, like a beaded curtain.

In Teotitlan del Valle, just outside of Oaxaca City, black beans are toasted and ground by hand on a volcanic stone metate. The resulting powder is mixed with water and spread on freshly made (also by hand) tlayudas as part of a healthy breakfast.

In Xalapa, Veracruz, tiny bags of ground avocado leaves are sold in the markets for around 20 cents. Bright green in colour, its anisey fragrance is added to stewed black beans.

In many regions of Mexico, whole avocado leaves are toasted and added to black beans and other dishes.

Today, black beans are cooking on my stove. And while the beans cook and I reflect over delicious memories, the toasted, ground black beans will be my breakfast spread over a hot corn tortilla.

Kale Chips

Fry it and they will come.

Another recent addition from the friends's recipe file are kale chips. And not a moment too soon. As spring takes hold and my garden beckons, what's left of winter's kale needs to be used up.

Here it is, with many thanks to Joie for this installment.

Kale Chips

Preheat oven to 350 to 375 F, depending on your oven.

Wash 2 bundles of kale, spin dry. You want the leaves bone dry.

Massage leaves with 1 - 2 Tbsp olive oil. Remove stems and rip leaves into chip-sized pieces. Spread kale onto a cookie sheet.

Season before or after baking.

- Coarse salt is a must.

- smoked paprika.

- grated Parm or asiago

- cumin, cardamom

- flavoured salt.

Based on your oven temperature, bake 10 - 15 minutes until edges are crispy and chips are brittle to touch. Pull out the tray before kale browns, otherwise it will be bitter.

Note: found that I needed to turn the oven down to finish the chips to brittle stage so they didn't brown. Damn, these are good.

Lionel's Salsa, Julie's Margarita

Among the food and travel journals, post-it notes and cookbooks, is a black binder filled with recipes. They run the gamut from a cooking class I attended to pages torn from the NY Times food section, but the recipes most cherished are the ones I've collected over the years from friends. From cookies to sorbets, simple salads to complex main courses, printed or handwritten, my little black book is a delicious testament to friendship and conviviality.

Case in point: when the prospect of ripe tomatoes are slim to nada, my friend Lionel created a wonderful salsa recipe that I've enjoyed many times in winter and summer.

It uses a can of plum tomatoes, extracted of all their juices, with the addition of minced serranos or jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, juice of half a lime, a bit of sugar, salt and olive oil. Served with freshly made corn chips, you have the makings of a fiesta with friends.

Drinks are now in order, and his partner in culinary crime, Julie, makes a mean margarita, a simple recipe that has become a mainstay in our household.

I give you both, because a friend in need is a friend indeed.

Lionel's Salsa

2 cloves garlic

2 serranos or jalapenos

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 freshly squeezed lime

1 - 796 ml. can of plum tomatoes

1/2 bunch of cilantro, washed and coarsely chopped

Mince garlic and serranos/jalapenos. Add sugar, salt, olive oil, lime juice and pulse the ingredients a few times in the blender.

Fork tomatoes out of the can (saving juice in can). Squeeze tomatoes by hand ins a sieve until the tomatoes hold together in a sense ball. Add the mixture to the blender, add cilantro and pulse, adding tomato juice slowly until the mixture reaches the right consistency.

Add chips and enjoy.

Julie's Margarita (con rocas)

Add ice cubes to a glass

1 1/2 oz. tequila

under 1 oz. triple sec

juice of one lime (or to taste).

Stir and taste. Adjust lime or triple sec. Taste again. Enjoy.

P.S. What to do with the leftover tomato juice? It's great in a cocktail, soup, sauce or in a sangrita, that lovely Mexican accompaniment to a shot of tequila.