Hey, Nice Coconuts!

Hola Galavanting Readers! I'm the new food editor and it's is my job to bring you the newest, coolest trends in foods from around the world, and I truly hope to live up to the challenge. Whether you hear from me, or another awesome female voice from the culinary industry, I hope that every month provides you with new, exciting perspectives on foods from around the world, and more importantly, the cultures and lands that produce them.

Now that we all know each other, lets jump on in! For Galavanting's premiere webisode, editors Kim, Katy and I headed to Costa Rica for a whirlwind tour of cloud forests, volcanoes, rainforests and beaches. Along the way, we ate some awesome Costa Rican food, so I've got some suggestions for your trip. Before getting specific, though, lets talk a little bit about typical Costa Rican cuisine.

Costa Rica has a ton of micro-climates - turning a corner or descending a hill can take you from hot and humid to pleasantly cool and dry. Overall, however, Costa Rica has a largely warm, moist climate that lends itself to growing the tropical foods. Costa Rica's largest exports are coffee and bananas, but they also grow avocados, mangoes, papaya, watermelon, pineapple and sugar cane. In addition to these products, there are a number of different citrus products such as sour oranges and mandarin limes (both have green skin and orange inside, differing only in size, with sour oranges being larger) that populate the roadside trees throughout Costa Rica. Costa Rica also has a number of guava fruit relatives, most famously the guanabana, or soursop. There is also lychee and passion fruit, making Costa Rica a true eden for fruit lovers. All of this fruit serves as a perfect accent to the fresh fish, such as marlin, mahi mahi (dolphin fish) and ahi tuna. Beans and rice round out the typical list of Costa Rican foods, and chefs around Costa Rica have proven that any combination of the above creates a delicious, tasty meal.

Besides having an amazing list of natural food products, Costa Rica is an incredibly eco-friendly country. Driving the landscape shows that Costa Ricans work with the land, planting coffee farms on the hillsides, rather than leveling the land, and using banana and orange trees as natural shade for the shade grown coffee. Food is grown, and consumed, locally and with a strong sense of preserving and working with the local landscape. While large supermarkets are definitely present in Costa Rica, most people I spoke with had a strong dedication to sourcing their food - both commercially and personally - from local vendors. Road side markets dotted nearly every road we traversed, with the vibrant hues of coconuts, mangoes and limes glistening under the warm Costa Rican sun. Tiny shops sold just-caught fish and meat and poultry from local farms showed up in the nightly arroz con pollo. Virtually every 20 minutes, a weathered and hand painted sign called out "se vende queso" from a roadside farm or house. In the span of a few kilometers, virtually every product necessary for a meal could be harvested and sold.

I had a few particularly amazing opportunities to sample Costa Rican food while on this trip. On the second day, we visited the first certified organic coffee farm in Costa Rica, Organico Los Nacientes, located in San Ramon, where we got to view the shade grown coffee production process. The owner, Eugenia Sanchez, explained the entire coffee production process by which the lovely green coffee bean transforms into that deeply roasted jolt of caffeine that truly is "the best part of waking up..." only better.

Besides getting to see the raw coffee product, we were able to sample the upper level of vegetation providing the shade on the farm. Using a combination of banana and orange trees, the farm created shade and natural fertilizer while maximizing their production of their land. Eugenia first shook down a sour orange from one of the trees, which had a deep green skin and a pale, fragrant orange center. While this was a little sour to snack on in its own right, I am sure it would have made a lovely addition to a fruit salsa or homemade lemonade. As we were exiting the coffee plantation, a whole bunch of bananas, about as big and heavy as a mini-refrigerator, lay on the ground. Eugenia quickly invited us to try a banana, confidently declaring that we had never had a real banana before, only those grown by Dole. She didn't say it, but I'm sure she would have added Chiquita in there, too.

The bananas handed to us were small and smelled impossibly sweet. Cracking open the peel further emitted a lovely fragrance that instantly made me want to make banana bread. One bit sealed the deal - I would never look at grocery store bananas the same way again. Unexploited by chemicals ar the pressure of mass production, these bananas tasted sweet, earthy and unspoiled. if I was strong enough to carry them, I would have taken the whole bunch home with me.

After leaving the coffee farm, we journeyed to Biaguaga, a town at the foothills of the Tenorio Volcano, towards the Nicaraguan border. We stayed at an amazing self-sustaining lodge, La Carolina, for our two nights there, where everything from the fruit to the meat and cheese was produced on the lodge's farm. Delicious, bold coffee helped awaken us every morning and smelled heavenly next to the fresh fruit and farm fresh eggs that greeted us every morning. Toast with homemade guava jelly served as an accompaniment to this morning feast that prepared us for a day of waterfall hikes, horseback rides and swimming in the river rapids. At night, the lodge turned off its electricity and whimsically lit the landscape with candles. Our dinners were a Costa Rican plato tipico, containing meat stewed in tomatoes and spices, rice and beans and a fresh slaw with a citrus dressing. After feasting like queens, we grabbed una copa de vino rojo (generally Chilean or Argentinian) and retired to the wood fired hot tubs.

Our departure from La Carolina landed us in La Fortuna, at the foot of Arenal Volcano, for a night of hotsprings and after-dark lava viewing. The next afternoon, we departed to Playa Grande, a small beachtown outside of Tamarindo in Guanacaste. There, we stayed at the Rip Jack Inn, and I got the plesure of spending the dinner rush in the kitchen with the executive chef, Peter Giles-Smith, who heads up the staff at Upstairs at the Rip Jack. Peter is a 30 year culinary veteran who has worked opening restaurants large and small, assisted in developing major hotel restaurants and also done food styling. Now, Pete rolls up to work in a tank top and flip flops to spend the day cooking up one rockin fresh menu.

The night we were there, I got to help make the food we ordered.For appetizers, we had fried calamari, tempura style nori wrapped tuna and a Greek Salad.Both the calamari and tuna were accompanied by a sweet soy reduction and various aiolis, such as wasabi and soy.The calamari was tender and delicious, and the tuna was hands down the best tempura I have ever had.The batter was light, sweet and prepared to a mouthwateringly decadent, golden crunch.The tuna, delivered the same day from local fishers, was soft and buttery, cooked perfectly rare.I could eat it every day for the rest of my life.

For our main courses, we had sesame crusted ahi tuna with brown rice and tempura vegetables; marlin wrapped in banana leaves with pineapple fried rice; and roasted chicken with creamy plantains and a black bean feta salad.Pete's approach to food appropriately highlights the fresh, local ingredients of Guanacaste.Working heavily with ginger, soy and other Asian inspired ingredients, Pete lets the fresh flavor take center stage.My Marlin, for example, was steamed in banana leaves with simply scallions and ginger.Topped with a spicy pineapple relish, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

For dessert, Pete served us an amazing Bananas Foster, made with 5 year aged cane sugar.I would have helped but was too busy sucking back my perfect margarita and taking in the beautiful views.This dinner certainly rated among the best I've ever had.The tuna alone is worth the airfare back!When speaking with Gregory, the manager of Rip Jack, it seems he heartily agrees.He told me that he has his "fish guy" deliver about a kilo of fresh tuna twice a week.The cost for this luxury?About $6 US.

My last meal at Rip Jack was breakfast, where I had fluffy, creamy banana pancakes and a guanabana shake.Guanabana, or soursop, grows like weeks in Costa Rica.It had a decidedly tropical flavor with a sweet, honeyed taste.I was in love.Fresh pineapple and papaya laid atop the pancakes, glistening with the colors of the beautiful Costa Rican sunrise that stretched out over the ocean in front of me.

Departing from Tamarindo marked nearly the end of the Costa Rican adventure. After a few more platos tipicos, planes (eventually) ferried us back to the reality of our everyday lives. The fresh, sweet taste of Costa Rican cuisine still lingers in my mind, however. I have always loved cooking, tasting and learning about food because of its homey, welcoming nature. Food is a true social equalizer.No matter when and where, a good meal can bring a smile to anyone's face. It can open people up, get them talking, and give you an eye into the center of any country's culture. People are proud of their food; proud to share it, proud to explain it, and proud to nourish others with it. Costa Rican food lives up to everything I love about cooking. Whether at a beautiful open air beach dining room or a tiny tin-roofed local restaurant, Costa Rican food provides contentment and comfort... and that full belly feeling isn't half bad either. Costa Ricans take their food seriously - it is homemade, and they never rush it. Don't be surprised if your travelling buddy's dinner comes out 10 minutes before yours. That's just how the kitchen is working that night. But once the food comes out, it will do exactly what any chef wants: it will encourage you to stay, chat and relax, and it will always make you want to come back for more.

Until next time, happy eating! ■

Costa Rican Inspired Recipe:

Plantain Fritters with Refried Black Beans

Serves 3-4 or 2 hungry people

3 plantains (or bananas), soft enough to mash but not overly ripe
1 tbsp freshly brewed Costa Rican coffee
2 tbsp fresh cream
1 tsp vanilla paste
2-3 tsp freshly grated cinnamon plus extra for sprinkling
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp brown sugar plus extra for sprinkling
2 tsp sugar plus extra for sprinkling
2 c flour
pinch of salt
2 c vegetable oil in a pan over medium heat

mash bananas, and slowly add all ingredients except flour.Slowly add in flour until mixture is semi-hard and remains on a spoon when turned upside down. Place tablespoons of tough into hot oil, and fry 2-3 minutes until golden brown.Remove and place on paper towels to absorb extra liquid.

Refried Beans

1 can black beans with liquid
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp salt
1/3 white onion, minced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 c water plus 3-4 tbsp mango puree (or other tropical fruit)

Combine all ingredients and mash with a spoon.Cook over low heat in a sturdy pot until creamy in texture.

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Heather Rascona is Galavanting's food editor. She is lives in Virginia with her husband Nick and adorable dog Roxie. She works as an attorney for Legal Services of Northern Virginia.

Heather has lived abroad with her Italian family and learned to make wine and other delicious things.

She also keeps a cooking blog called Diary of a Fanatic Foodie.