Chipa guazu is a Paraguayan corn pie, usually consisting of fresh corn, onions, eggs and some other ingredients. it was like a creamy, fluffy quiche, and you could taste all of the ingredients. We tried it on the Paraguay stop of our World Cup challenge and it was fantastic.
Since this is more of the "storytelling" blog, I would have used this opportunity to talk about how much we love the World Cup, both for the sport and the rare moment of togetherness in which it brings the world. The problem is that I already did that when I recapped my top 10 favorite food memories of last year. I still believe it but instead, I'm going to talk about why we do food challenges.
It's very easy in NYC, especially in our neighborhood, to just go to nearby restaurants and not branch out. After all, we live in Hell's Kitchen. The number of restaurants on 9th Avenue is staggering; every block is covered with places to eat from end to end. Even 10th Avenue, which has far fewer restaurants, has more in our area than some neighborhoods have in total. We're really lucky to live so close to so many good food options, but more often than not, it means that when we're going out to eat, we just leave our apartment, take a walk, see what we're in the mood for or what has seats, and walk in. The closest restaurants are just downstairs, unlike when we were in Chicago and had to walk at least the length of one avenue to get to the first place. Even though there are a lot of options here, at some point, after this many years, they will become rather familiar. And it's not always so much about finding the best, but going to the most convenient place.
The food challenges get us out of that "rut" and encourage us to try new things. The first one we did was the World Cup challenge. In honor of the fantastic tournament, we tried to eat at restaurants representing the countries that were playing in the tournament. Some were easier to find than others (the African nations were especially difficult), but it encouraged us to do research, get on the subway, travel to Sunnyside or even just the South Street Seaport and try some new foods. It broadened our horizons, gave us some new favorites (like chipa guazu) and exploring the city during the summer was a lot of fun. We also challenged ourselves during our recent trip to Disney to eat all the food options at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival, but that was a little more self-contained and somewhat less exploratory and exciting. We made it to over half the nations in the World Cup (which was our measure of success) and ate all the food options at Epcot Food and Wine (definitely a success).
Our current "challenge" is somewhat more long-term and we haven't really begun. It's our attempt to explore the cuisines of all the nations/regions of the world. First up is Canada, and we're trying to figure out when we can make it out to Mile End for brunch. That leads me to our next "challenge." As it's December and time for memory lists and resolutions, we're going to make some food resolutions, which I consider to be our challenge to ourselves to explore some more in 2012.
Not that anyone reads this blog, but any ideas for other challenges?
No comments:
Post a Comment