What happens when its dinner time in Thailand and the power goes out?  Well, you just have to get creative.  Jean Pierre certainly has one solution…

EATING (and then trying to cook) while traveling with your best friend.

When Amy Cao visited me in Quito and brought our replacement video camera after the first one became a casualty of bus robbery, it was a bit of a working holiday for her. Amy’s a non-cooking food-writer-turned-food-show-host who produces charmingly comedic Stupidly Simple Snacks videos for the many of us who, like her, are handicapped in the kitchen.

Since Amy’s life and profession revolve around food (as have many of our best conversations in the eight years we’ve been friends), we spent a lot of time eating.

Eating our way through Ecuador

We toured Quito by day, ducking into tiny mom-and-pop restaurants for set lunches that cost $2. If we were feeling really good about ourselves, we’d splurge on $5 ceviche. At night she’d visit me at work at Uncle Ho’s to dine on fresh shrimp rolls and Vietnamese coffee as she kept up with her website via MacBook.

The professional version

We wandered through local markets drinking exotic fresh fruit juices like taxo, naranjilla and tomate de arbol. We devoured regional dishes like shredded pork with buttery mashed potato cakes topped with a fried egg, not caring that our lunch’s source (a giant fried pig’s body) was staring us in the face. We ate 50 cent cheese empanadas on the bus and sampled $20 guinea pig at a 5-star hotel. In short, we did what we do best: talked at length about the world and the lives we spend traversing it over a long, lovely meal.

It wasn’t all mangos and banana smoothies though. On Amy’s last night in Quito, we decided to roll up our sleeves and take over the kitchen in my apartment in Quito (although, good roommate that I am, decided not to “borrow” Freddie’s orange for our recipe). We filmed the debacle – ahem, culinary success – and Amy created a video so you can laugh along as we endeavor to make Ecuadorian ceviche. And yes, we’re in our pajamas at the end of the video (and yes, we have matching shirts that say Up with Life/Down with Oil in reference to Ecuador’s endangered Yasuni rainforest) because we went out for a celebratory dinner at a hillside hacienda for Amy’s last meal…and then she dragged me out of bed at 5am so we could taste our masterpiece and film ourselves eating raw fish at dawn before she flew back to NYC.

Armed with our ingredients

See what we concoct in an unexpected culinary comedy when this Jet Set Zero cast member stirs the pot with Amy Blogs Chow.

In our first short from Season 7: Italy, enjoy a brief peak into the cooking of an idyllic Italian family dinner.

Qui a dit “Cuisiner, c’est ennuyeux à mourir”?! Eh bien il n’y a rien de plus faux. En voici la preuve…

Have you ever noticed that sugar doesn’t have a smell?

Well, Ecuadorian sugar has one. Ecuadorian sugar, or rather, panela. Panela is solidified sugar cane juice. Ecuadorians use it as a sweetener for a lot of things and, let me tell you, it tastes (and smells) like heaven.

On my very first trip to the grocery store I bought a huge round chunk of panela. “If I’m going to cook here,” I thought, “I’m going to do it the Ecuadorian way!”

Panela: solidified sugar cane juice Ecuadorians use as a sweetener.

Forget about boring granulated white sugar. And welcome the hard-to-cut-panela chunk that will make your desserts stand out!

Cutting panela: quite a feat!

Ecuador also has amazing dark chocolate, but unfortunately, it’s almost all for export. Unless you are willing to spend $3.50 on a 100g chocolate bar you can find at tourist markets.

So when my journalist friend Paulina told me they also have good and cheap unsweetened dark chocolate for cooking… I ran to the grocery store without a moment’s thought!

Jenna and I have been using it to make delectable desserts: chocolate cake, quinoa cookie, brownie… My latest creation- a combination of two recipes I found on the internet: a pear and chocolate pie.

Pears, homemade crust, melted chocolate and secret mix for delicious desert.

It didn’t turn out exactly how I pictured it, but it was still very good. So said Jenna.

Pear and chocolate pie!

* * * * * * *
LES COULISSES DU PATISSIER

Avez-vous jamais remarqué que le sucre n’a pas d’odeur?

Parce que le sucre équatorien, lui, sent très bon. Sucre équatorien, ou plutôt panela. La panela est un bloc de jus de canne à sucre solidifié. Les Equatoriens l’utilisent pour sucrer de nombreux plats ou boissons, et permettez-moi de vous dire que c’est vraiment, vraiment très bon.

Lors de ma première expédition au supermarché j’ai acheté un gros bloc rond de panela. ”Si je vais cuisiner, je vais le faire à la mode équatorienne!”, me suis-je dit.

Oublié le sucre blanc granulé! Et bienvenue à la panela-sacrément-dure-à-couper qui transforme vos desserts en mets les plus exquis!

L’Equateur produit aussi un chocolat noir des plus fins, mais malheureusement, tout est quasiment voué à l’exportation. Sauf si vous êtes prêt à dépenser $3.50 pour une tablette de 100g de chocolat noir trouvable dans les marchés pour touristes.

Alors quand Paulina, une amie journaliste équatorienne, m’a dit qu’on pouvait trouver du chocolat noir non sucré bon marché, pour faire la cuisine, ni une ni deux! Je me suis ruée au supermarché du coin!

Jenna et moi en avons utilisé pas mal pour concoter de savoureux desserts: gâteau au chocolat, cookie de quinoa, brownie… Ma dernière création, réalisée grâce à la fusion de deux recettes trouvées sur internet: une tarte aux poires chocolat.

Et même si elle n’avait pas tout à fait la tête que je voulais, elle était tout de même très bonne.
Parole de Jenna.

The first step in enjoying these delectable meals is shop at Don Quijote, the bizarre “buy-everything-for-cheap” discount store.  You can buy bright underwear, pastries, barbells, shampoo, santa hats, cell phones, and dog food, to name a few – it’s like a Wal-mart, but with too many colors and Hello Kitty-ish music.  Wandering through a Don Quijote is an experience in and of itself…and while you do it, buy basic groceries!  99Y for a loaf of thick white bread.  150Y for 10 eggs.  Sometimes, 10Y for a processed and packaged donut…

The first cheap recipe we made was French Toast Bites – admittedly not Japanese, but nonetheless cheap, delicious, and easy.

For one person:

• 2 eggs: 32 Yen
• 2 slices of thick bread: 30 Yen
• 2 tsp oil (well, a splash really – I don’t measure): ~5 Yen
• 2 splashes milk: ~10 Y
• Many splashes of syrup: ~10 Y

Total: 87Y/person for breakfast.

Cut the bread slices into small squares.  Beat the 2 eggs, adding in the 2 splashes of milk.  Heat a skillet on medium heat with a splash of oil, until the oil runs easily around when you tilt the pan.  Soak the bread in the beaten eggs, then plop onto the pan.  They won’t need long to cook on the first side, so after about 60 seconds, flip them and turn the heat a little lower.  They should be golden brown, like good roasted marshmellows…mmm marshmellows…anyway, let them cook for awhile on lower heat – ah hell, everyone knows how to make french toast.