Lest you think I spent my entire vacation with my toes in the sand and a drink in my hand – while we were in Cozumel my dear wife signed us up for a cooking class with local chef Josefina Gonzales Luigi. The class offered a truly immersive cooking experience – from touring Josefina’s prolific garden (and playing with her four kitties), to deciding upon the menu, then trying out our Spanish while shopping San Miguel’s mercado for fresh ingredients, and finally assembling the goodies under Josefina’s guidance.

We walked from Josefina’s kitchen over to the market to pick up supplies. The mercado is a block-sized labyrinth of vendors selling everything from fresh meat and produce, to hand-made linens, cooking utensils, and clothing.

Fresh red snapper on their way to becoming lunch.

When we returned from shopping, Josefina’s assistant had a big batch of refreshing agua de jamaica (hibiscus tea) waiting for us.

1 cup dried hibiscus flowers (found in large bags in the ethnic foods section of most big grocery stores)
3/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, to taste
1/2 gallon water

Put 4 cups of the water and the sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat until boiling and the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat. Stir in the dried hibiscus flowers. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes. Strain into a pitcher, discarding the flowers

Add the remaining water (or ice and water if you want it cold fast) and chill.

After enjoying the agua de jamaica we started the ceviche right away so it could “cook” while we prepared the rest of the goodies.

1 pound firm white fish, deboned and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 pound shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup lime juice (about 4 limes)
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 teaspoon habañero pepper, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

Because there is a (small) risk of parasites if the shrimp are fresh, you’ll want to boil them before adding them to the ceviche – fill a medium saucepan with 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add the shrimp to the boiling water, stir, cover and remove from the heat. Let stand for 8 to 10 minutes, or until shrimp are pink and just cooked through. Drain shrimp off into a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.

Put the fish and shrimp in a large, non-reactive bowl. Cover with lime juice and stir well to make sure everything gets coated in lime juice. Let sit in the refrigerator for 20 minutes, Stir and return it to the fridge for another 20 minutes. After 40 minutes in the lime juice the fish should be “cooked” through and change from being pinkish grey and translucent to whiter in color, firm, and opaque. Stir in the onion, cilantro, and chile. Return to the fridge for another 20 minutes to let the flavors develop.

Serve with tortilla chips.

There were 10 other folks in class, and all told we ended up making refried black beans, guacamole, nopale (cactus) salad, red and green sauces, ceviche, margaritas, mango and cucumber salad, achiote sauce, habañero salsa, corn tortillas, and quesadillas. It was quite a meal and a real joy to get to learn from a talented cook and get to use fresh local ingredients.

A huge thanks to my dear wife for setting this up. It was the highlight of our trip and a great way to spend my birthday!

We are currently enjoying the peace and solitude of the great north woods, so no new food posts this week.

The photo above was taken from the porch of the cabin we’re renting. I was setting up a landscape shot when my dear wife noticed a canoe on the beach. So I was going to wait until they paddled by to add them to the composition.

As I waited, my dear wife asked “Are they setting up a camera tripod in the water?” Sure enough, somebody was shooting an outdoor ad. They had this poor guy in red flannel portaging his canoe back and forth until they got the shot they wanted.

So this is my landscape shot of their photo shoot. Enjoy!

P.S. For all you fellow geeks out there – the photos were transferred from my OM-D camera to my netbook wirelessly via an Eye-Fi card. Then uploaded to the cloud through a Droid mobile hotspot.

Update

What’s a vacation without some grilling? I had the great luck to get to cook up a couple of meals on this neat 1940′s stone grill/fireplace.

No recipe here – just some monster burgers cooked in the great outdoors.

My Big Green Egg is so well-insulated, it really doesn’t care how cold it is, so even though I live in a northerly clime, I still pretty much grill year-round. While winter grilling can be more of a challenge, it can still be a lot of fun if you keep these things in mind:

• Dress for the weather, both of them – it’s not just about staying warm outside, it’s also about managing the transition from outside to inside. Dress in layers that you can easily remove. I wear pak boots that I can slip off at the door and have a “landing strip” of rugs both inside and outside so I don’t track all over the house.
• Clear your cooking area – shovel out the grill, your working area, and a path to the door. You do not want to go down in a pile while juggling a plate of food.
• Plan on using more fuel and time – anything below freezing and I add 25% more time and fuel to my projected cook just to be on the safe side.
• Wear insulated/fire-resistant gloves – both heat and cold can burn you and the risk goes up when the temps go down. Slap a bare, damp hand on a MAPP cylinder at  5°F and you’ll feel about as dumb as the kid with his tongue stuck to the the flag pole.
• Cold = dark – if you’re cooking in the late afternoon you need to be prepared to do it in the dark. Grill lights or flood lights are nice, but to see what’s really going on with the food,  I like my headlamp that my dear wife calls a “dork light.”
• Go hot ‘n fast or set ‘n forget – steaks are a joy, even when it’s cold out. Wait inside until the grill is up to temp and then your total outdoor cook time is well under 10 minutes. With ribs or butts you’re only outside to put them on, check the temp every now and then, and take them off when they’re done. Use a remote thermometer and you barely have to get off the couch.

ONE YEAR AGO – Valentine’s Day

TWO YEARS AGO - Wing Sauce – First Try

I’ve been a bad food blogger.

The holidays came as a rush this year and, while I’ve been cooking, I haven’t been sharing those meals here.

Sorry about that.

To make amends, here’s a list of hopes/plans/wishes/resolutions that I’m looking forward to in 2012:

• Tonight’s prime rib – with a recipe inspired by Michael Ruhlman and AmazingRibs. I have big hopes for this meal, and it will be fun to share it with dear friends.
• Blogging more, worrying less – sometimes I over-think things when I should let the food do the talking.
• Catching up on my reading – Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie, Smokin’ with Myron Mixon, The Homesick Texan Cookbook, The Gluten-Free Bible, and the Big Green Egg Cookbook are all on my list.
• Learning to code in WordPress - painful but necessary.
• Spending more time playing and traveling with my dear wife.
• Experimenting with the new Lomo lens on my Panasonic cameras (photo of the Big Green Egg ornament above taken with it).
• Weight Watchers – need to keep on keeping it off. Mom’s caramel corn didn’t help over the holidays, but we are in much better shape than we were last year.