My favorite yerba mate blend had been sitting in a hotel lobby in Hollywood for almost a week. The drive to go get it from Laguna Beach was three hours round trip. To justify the drive, I invited Nathalie to join me and made a day out of it.  By 10:30 our yerba mate mission was accomplished so we proceeded to drive to Silverlake to explore a new neighborhood.

I forgot my SD card so we ended up sharing Nathalie’s camera, so the pictures below are a true collaboration!

Nathalie is part german part french, she lived in so many countries and continents that listing them would take me to long. Due to her multiple nationalities she holds many traditions and currywurst sausage eating is one of them. Currywurst is a sausage covered in ketchup and curry. When she saw this little german shop on Silverlake stopping for a taste was a must. I tend to never eat sausages but when with a german eat like a german, right?

Coming from Orange County where everything blends together in a beige palette, it was refreshing to see street art everywhere and all kinds of speciality stores each of them with a unique style.

After walking and eating for a couple of hours in Silverlake we drove to Echo Park to visit a Uruguayan friend who I have’t seen in years. He is an amazing artist that works with dying formats. He was having friends over and we joined the party.  To my surprise all of the guests were Uruguayans. In classic Uruguayan style turns out we were all related in some way or another: a college professor, a friend of friend, and even a distant relative.

With a camera full with pictures, yerba mate in hand, new friends and memories we returned to our dear suburbia. Only in LA can you live such a cross cultural experience in so little time…from Germany, to Uruguay and back to the US in a couple of hours.

Con Amor,

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Frozen Fruit Bowl: An Alternative To The Ice Cream Crave

I wanted to share this simple recipe on how to do it. They are delicious to eat and fun to make.

Please note: I’m not the kind of cook that controls every ingredient measure, I usually change proportions till I find my sweet spot. You wont find here exact proportions or quantities, this will vary depending on how many people you want to serve and how thick or runny you like your bowl. I encourage you to let go and experiment! …with a little guidance.

INGREDIENTS

To Blend:

* Frozen fruits. I used: mangos, strawberries, pineapple and banana.

* Vegetables. I used: spinach and beet.

* Coconut milk or whichever kind of milk you use.

* FOOD PROCESSOR. A blender can work fine too, but you’ll find yourself stopping it and pushing down the mix as the thickness is hard for the blender blade.

To Top:

* Almonds

* Sesame seeds

* Blue berries

* Goji berries

* Bananas

* LOTS OF LOVE and KITCHEN ENJOYMENT

You can buy the frozen fruits ready to use or freeze them yourself. Just chop, chop and freeze. Make sure you freeze some bananas. I still haven come across frozen bananas so I always freeze them myself. They give a great creamy consistency and sweet flavor to the mix.

I personally love adding green leaf vegetables. For this one I also added beet. beets can add some extra crunchiness. If you rather have it soft make sure you steam it, and let it cool, before adding it to the mix.

Now onto the MAKING: toss the frozen fruits, the milk (whichever you have) and the vegetables onto the food processor. Don’t put too much liquid because you’ll get a more runny consistency and the idea is to make it thick. I usually fill up 1/4 of the processor with the milk. Also, try to have more frozen fruits than veggies. Here I added only half of a beet and a hand full of spinach. Blend it all and serve it in a bowl.

To TOP IT all add some chopped bananas, blue berries, goji berries, almonds and sesame seeds (or whatever you have available on this department) . Some other things I like to add are: shredded coconut, peaches, strawberries, chia seeds or dried fruits. If you are ok with sugar: granola and some honey are great things to add.

This frozen fruit bowl make a great nutritious breakfast too.

Get creative: mix, match, blend!

Mucho Amor, 

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In only three hours we crossed the Baja Peninsula and went from the wild Pacific to the calm Sea Of Cortez. In those three hours I saw the land roll before my eyes and go from oak trees to a green valley, then came the nopales and finally the ocotillos and chollas. The closer we got to the other coast the smaller the vegetation became.  After 3 days of gray June gloom skies in Ensenada the boundless turquoise waters from San Felipe provided instant happiness.

We proceeded to go to town and get some big straw hats to escape from the sun and some floats to keep us entertained in the water. Shortly thereafter we stopped at the coast where the skies melted into the sea in an endless teal created by the bright day.

Summer is San Felipe’s worst season with temperatures that reach 100 degrees. Because of that, our schedule was filled with palapa shade,  water floats and air conditioned restaurants, really anything to stay cool. We ventured to go for a little hike for one afternoon only because we didn’t want to miss the giant sahuaros forest. The beauty and stillness of that centennial forest helped  us forget the heat and the sun digging into our skin for the two hours of our visit.

Due to the extreme weather the town was deserted and so were the beaches. It was only after seven in the afternoon that we’d see people walking around and exercising on the malecon. Living in the urban sprawl of Orange County this last fact was the highlight of our trip. Emptiness, silence and a sense of calm set the mood in the harsh landscape.

San Felipe is known for having one of the largest tidal changes in the world. The picture below is at low tide, and the water was still going out.

Thanks for coming along!

Con amor,

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