It’s 50 degrees in Des Moines today. The snow is melting, the air smells like spring, and for the first time, in a long, long time, I didn’t have to spend 10 minutes in the morning de-icing my car. You would think that I’d be thrilled with this unexpected gift from mother nature. Not so much. This is just a tease – like a candy dangled in front of the child, just to be taken away. Tomorrow, it’ll be back to 20-degree weather. Bundle up!

My internship at Cuisine is moving along, and I’m currently working on my third issue of the magazine, that will come out in August. The first issue I worked on would be available in March – exciting!

Here are the recipes that I’ve been developing – they are pretty close to being complete.

*Huli Huli Chicken Drumsticks (grilled) with Hawaiian Pasta Salad
*Korean BBQ with Kimchi Rice and Cucumber-Radish Salad

The recipes I developed for the June/July Issue:
*Cremini Marsala Pizza with Radicchio Salad
*Veracruz Rice
*Mole Rubbed Steak Fajitas + Sides
*Mexican Spicy Grilled Corn
*Grilled Scallop Teriyaki Salad
*Grilled Fattoush Salad

Since we are working on issues 6 months ahead of the publishing time, it’s summer-grilling time around here. Somewhat strange. They enclosed the outside patio with temporary walls, so we are grilling in there – smoky!

Turns out that I dance Cuban-style salsa rather than in-line salsa. This was pointed out to me by one of my favorite salsa dancers here in Des Moines, who just happens to be a professional ball room instructor (so I suppose he knows what he’s talking about). He meant it as a matter-of-fact statement. I took it as a criticism (shocker, I know). Not dancing in-line, to me, meant that I dance out of line – traveling too much during spins, rather than rotating in one space or traveling in the same line. Cuban style salsa has more of a circular dance pattern. So, from now on, I’m going to make a conscious effort to stay in line!!!

I haven’t always been a fan of mangoes. Perhaps it is the strong pine odor that made me feel like I was biting into a pine tree and had its sap run down my chin, or the fact that the long fibrous strands of the fruit made it necessary to floss immediately after eating it.

But eventually, I grew to appreciate mangoes and happily incorporated them into my lifestyle. The problem I have been facing most recently is the winter mango syndrome. Here’s what happens. I go to the store, and see wooden crates of mangoes among the typical winter-available produce (oranges, pears, apples left from the fall). The mangoes look exotic and regal next to the other fruit, and they are on sale! How could I possibly resist?

I test each mango before it gently lands in my grocery basket. First, I go for the visual clues – not too much green skin, no brown discolorations, I want vibrant yellows, oranges, and maroons. Next, I give the fruit a squeeze – the flesh needs to give a bit to the touch, but still be firm. And then I smell it – there is a hint of tropics. I’m good to go.

I get home, slice through the mango…and then, there it is – the winter syndrome. The perfect looking mango is completely brown inside and inedible, most likely from a frost bite. Directly into the garbage it goes.

It’s not a secret that when it comes to salsa dancing, I’m somewhat (ok, totally and completely) obsessed. The obsession began at Sipango, a Dallas restaurant which featured live salsa music (by Havana NRG) on Wednesdays. Fast forward seven years, quite a few pairs of worn out shoes, good and bad dance partners, etc., the obsession continue to grow, steadily. In fact, I make it a point to salsa dance whenever I visit a new city, state, or country, and so far have happily salsa-ed in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Seattle, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Ft. Lauderdale, Chicago, New York, Puerto Rico, Paris, and most recently, Des Moines.

Well, apparently things have been getting more serious than I thought, because I’m not sure how else one would explain what I did last Friday. Here’s what happened. After work, I met up with a few people from salsa and we drove for 3.5 hours to Kansas City, where we danced until 1:30am (that would be Saturday morning) and then headed back to Des Moines, arriving bright and early at 5:30am. Craziness, pure craziness!

Our photographer showed up today with a huge bucket of fresh flowers (carnations, roses, lilies, astromerias, etc) from the shoot he just finished at a local grocery store. Flowers galore! Made two arrangements – one to keep at work, and one to take home. Nothing like fresh flowers to brighten up a day.

Caucus I was, and caucus I did. Braving the winter Iowa chills and crowds of people, some with their crying and unhappy children, I attended a local community center last night to caucus for Obama. It was clear right away that the sheer number of attendees way exceeded what anyone could possibly expect. In fact, I believe this election year set the record for caucus turn-out.

Once inside the community center, I indicated that I was supporting Obama and was given a sticker with his name (no thank you nice man, I will stick that sticker on myself, I do not require any help in that department). Lines, several of them, were attempted to be formed by above mentioned crowds. That was quite an undertaking. I am not registered to vote in Iowa, but I knew I could register at the event. However, I was at the wrong location (according to my local address), and was denied registration. That’s fine, I asked if I could still witness the event, and was granted the entry.

Now, imagine 422 people (not including all the minors who were not counted) all in one room, standing around, waiting for something to happen. It was overwhelming to say the least. They could barely fit all of us in one room (you’d be in pretty bad shape if you were claustrophobic). There were some conversations happening around the room, but nothing too vocal as I expected. By the way, this was a location specifically for democratic presidential candidates, supporters of Republican candidates were meeting elsewhere.

Next, we were instructed to go into different rooms, according to which candidates we were supporting. We were then counted, a task that would’ve been made much simpler, had they counted us AS we were entering the room, rather than once we were all in the room. But that’s just details. Anyway, turns out that we had 182 Obama supporters in the room. Major news! That was almost half of all the attendees. According to the rules, you needed at least 64 people for the candidate of your choice to be viable. And then for every 47 people, your candidate gets 1 delegate.

Clear on the math? So at that point, we had enough people for 3 delegates. These delegates were sent to the rooms with Clinton, Edwards, and Biden supporters, trying to convince them to switch sides and come to the Obama room. I was somewhat disappointed that I didn’t get to hear their arguments (had to stay in the Obama room). Well, their arguments must’ve been somewhat affective, because we got 14 more people by the time the second count took place, giving Obama 1 more delegate, for a total of 4.

As for the others, both Clinton and Edwards ended up with 2 delegates, and Biden (who at the start of the night didn’t have enough supporters to be even viable) finished with 1 delegate.

Looking at the overall state numbers, the story at my caucus location seems to be pretty representative of the state (at least for the top 3 candidates). Obama got 38% of the votes, Edwards and Clinton 30% each. I’ve got to say, this is a great time to be in Iowa.

Eating on the job is one of the perks here at Cuisine. Lately though, I’ve been trying to avoid this perk (aka weight gain) by going to the gym during lunch. But one must still eat, right? What usually happens though, is by the time I’m back from the gym, the kitchen table is empty and I am left with a dilemma of what to eat (I’m not about to start packing my own lunches).

Yesterday, I came back from the gym and was admiring a take-out salad one of the art directors was eating. “Wow, the salad looks great!” I said loudly enough for the Editor of the magazine to hear. Less than 10 minutes later, John presented to me a plate of better-than-just-Greek salad – I can’t think of a better name, but it had mixed greens, red onions, feta, green olives, banana peppers, cherry tomatoes, in a fresh red vinegar oregano vinaigrette. And if that wasn’t enough, he had grilled pita bread, cut into wedges, on a side.

Last night’s dinner.

1. Remove a piece of steak from the refrigerator about 20 minutes before cooking, season with salt and pepper.
2. Heat a pan with a little bit of oil.
3. Cook the steak according to your preference (medium-rare for me).
4. Remove the steak from the pan and rest on a plate.
5. Pour off extra fat from the pan, add chopped sundried tomatoes, capers, sliced garlic, diced red onion, and fresh lemon juice. Cook for a few minutes to bring the sauce together. Fresh parsley would be nice here.
6. Pour the sauce over the steak (the juices that come out of the steak while it’s resting, should be added to the sauce).
7. Crumble some blue cheese on top.

Feels like -7°F. The temperature is dropping to 0°F by this afternoon. Need I say more? Brrrrr

I would love to hear from you!

Please feel free to contact me with questions, cooking class inquiries, recipe development and testing or just to say hello.

cia007girl at gmail
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Thank you.

My name is Anna.  Welcome to my blog!  I began this blog at the end of 2006.  This was a big year for me.  I decided to leave my comfortable life in Dallas, my friends, my job, my apartment, and move to Upstate New York to pursue my culinary passion at the Culinary Institute of America.  This blog was originally created as a tool to keep up with my friends and to share my experience at the school.  After I graduated from school, I kept the blog and continue to use it as my personal diary – a collection of recipes, restaurant reviews and food photos.  I welcome you to explore this site and hope you learn new recipes ideas and share your own.

I am originally from Russia and moved to the United States at the age of 13. I have since lived in Seattle (where I am lucky to live at the moment), Dallas, New York, Des Moines, and Birmingham.  You can say that my passion for food took me places far and away.

I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2008 and have been pursuing culinary milestones (big and small) ever since.  I teach cooking classes (hands on and demo to both kids and adults), develop and test recipes for magazines and cookbook, and eat.  I love to eat!  Will you join me?