Keep a look out for the future winner of the California Walnut Board’s winter walnut baking contest (me). I welcome any baking competitors to give it your best shot! 
Anything made with walnuts is a winner in my book. I’m doubly excited that Emily Luchetti whose classic Stars Desserts cookbook I have often used, is involved. Here she has some walnut tips.
Good luck!
When I win, I vow that I will officially become a Foodzie producer to share my creation with the world.
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Late one afternoon at work, I marveled at how energetic I felt, as if it were morning.
Then today as I dragged myself down the street, pre coffee, I remembered I had Java Rocks in my bag. I whipped them out, ate a few, and blammo! I was prancing down the street like a typical San Francisco crazy. This made me realize that afternoon I had also snacked on Java Rocks, my new favorite snack candy. When I first saw the little pebble shape, I wondered if they would be good. But the shell is really thin and they are filled with very finely ground coffee and cocoa - the new chocolate covered coffee bean. Just a few of them provide a lot of energy and they are honestly addictively delicious (I will never go camping without my coffee in a tube.)
YES they are sold on Foodzie, but that is how I had the chance to taste them. The chocolate covered coffee beans are great too, but it’s much more fun to be eating rocks.
Everyday Edisons has a fun contest to create the next new mainstream candy. How Do You Take Your Coffee?, the company who makes Java Rocks and other creative coffee chocolate snacking candy, is the perfect example of thinking outside the bag. Yum!
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Someone asked me that question today. And instead of responding, I thought it worthy of a blog post for the answer is: I was born one!
I’ll never forget the day I interviewed at one of the oldest chocolate shops in LA, where I ended up working for several years. They were like my family and I proved them wrong when they said I’d get sick of eating candy. That’s when I first learned how much I love connecting with customers and sharing good sweets.Years later I started making marshmallows at home, at parties, so easy and fun. (My mom reminded me that her grandmother had a candy store in Europe! In our family lineage.)Update: My friends reminded me of even more examples!
The funny thing is I’m not a foodie in the way that many people are. I don’t seek out the latest restaurants and the most exotic foods. My ideal meal is a chunk of cheese, some olive oil, bread, salt and pepper, fruit. Gruyere melted on german pumpernickel with tomatoes. An apple with blue cheese. And even prunes with walnuts! (Try it! Or if you comment I may just stuff some and dip them in dark chocolate for you merely for reading my silly ol blog.)
If you’re reading perhaps you too are a “foodie.” Did that come about gradually or like a bolt of lightening?
Now back to being a Foodzie…
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How do you drink orxata, or horchata?
“Te comas la puntita como si fuera un puro y lo metes en la horchata.” (in other words: “You eat the tip of the farton like it’s the tip of a cigar and then stick the farton into the horchata” so it absorbs some of the drink.)
This according to my friend Xavier, who sent me to El Siglo, where they’ve been making horchata in Valencia, Spain since 1836! El Siglo is in La Plaza de la Reina.
As I’d gone this far in my life without consuming horchata, which you find all over Los Angeles, I wasn’t sure I needed it here in spain…until realizing what a historic local delicacy it really is.
California had barely been settled by the masses when this horchateria was already in full swing. It is now 173 years old. No wonder the woman seemed bored and frustrated when I asked if there was a menu.
In my stress of ordering quickly, I forgot about the farton although I’m not so sure it would have gone wellw ith my delicious granatizata (ice slushy) horchata with lemon. But it’s like a long sweet bread stick, described well here.
As I wondered what all the hubbub was about the horchata, a girl of 7-ish or so years walked in to ask the woman a question. Out came a plate of little brown-skinned tiger nuts, the base of horchata. The girl took a nut, then I did. The woman explained that the tiger nut is a tuber that grows in the ground, indigenous to Valencia. It was chewy with an almond / chestnut flavor. In olden days they ate the nuts as a snack, but no more.
Horchata is best the day its made. And she explained that bottled is no good with all the additives. Anticipating the answer, I asked if it had great health benefits.
What do you think?
On the other hand I know that the thick hot chocolate you get in Spain has health benefits and one should consume as much of it as possible!
They scoop the horchata from these big metal vats:
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I literally cannot remember the last time I was at a McDonald’s in the US. Normally they barely seep into my consciousness..if you asked me where one was, I likely couldn’t tell you.
Here in Valencia, free wifi access seems to be nearly non-existant. It was with trepidation that I went into the McDonald’s to get the scoop. To my surprise:
It didn’t have the familiar McDonald’s grease smell.
2) It was decorated more swankily than an Italian furniture showroom.
3) Their music switched between hip hop and REM.
OK even their staff had these really cute shirts on with the M stitched on, in a hip DIY way.
I got an espresso with milk for 1.15 Euros (about $1.60) and surfed for 30 minutes, which is what you get with every purchase, no minimum.
The irony does not escape me that I who likes to discover and patronize independent small businesses is thrilled to have McDonald’s on hand here…and that I have been exposed to their marketing and am telling people about their campaign to buy and serve authentic food here in Spain.
Well I had to show my gratitude *somehow*. They’re certainly on the right track and it will be interesting to see if these concepts spread to the US. The only problem is I can only drink so much coffee.
Then I got a tip: Free public wifi access
A friend suggested going near the train station, a university, or library. At the Mercado de Colon (which is really just a small mall…boy the marketing is good) there is free wifi. Mon Orxata is a nice safe place to sit outside and enjoy orxata ( ”horchata” ) or an Illy cafe with all the surfing you want, on your own laptop.
Orxata is super sweet much like Thai iced coffee and is a regional specialty. Tonight I shall experience another regional specialty: wine!
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