Festival Latino 2014

Majority of last week, I was down with a terrible flu. As soon as I realized I'm getting the flu, I didn't even bother to wait to get an appointment from my physician, I ran to urgent care. Waited for almost two hours, only to get a prescription for an antibiotic dose. I don't know how much it helped though, because the next two days I was too weak to even to get out of the bed. My situation got better by Thursday, and by Friday I was almost back to normal. 

So, during the weekend I wasn't ready to sit back and relax. I knew the summer is coming to an end soon and wanted to reap the benefits of the longer sunny days before mother nature throws us another Polar Vortex. The moment I had my energy drink, that is my well made tea, I searched through the internet, looking for the events happening around Columbus. I came across "Festival Latino 2014". 

"Do you wanna go?," I asked my husband. 

"Sounds like fun, we can go," he said, "but, before that I have some work to do," he added. 

"It's alright. Even I have to walk the dog and do some other stuff." 

"We'll plan to go after 1pm may be," he suggested. 

 The agenda said all the entertainment events start after 1pm at Bicentennial Park in Columbus, OH. I looked for more information about the festival. This is event that has been around since 1996 and held every year since then. It did sound good. 

By about 2.30pm, we managed to get ready and leave the house. It was a beautiful day, the sunshine was exactly the way I liked; not too hot with a touch of soothing warmth. 

"Perfect day for a festival," I thought. 

To some weird reason, we parked our car 1 mile away from the Bicentennial Park and walked. I didn't regret that even a bit. I like walking. Downtown Columbus was almost deserted and we could get a nice up close view  of many buildings. Though Ara kept pointing at empty car parks, regretting the decision to park further, I enjoyed our walk across the city. 

By the time we got to the Scioto River we heard the music and saw the tents.It made us walk a little faster. Stopping by the lookout place near the Scioto River, we checked the festival grounds through the built-in binoculars. It looked fun. 

"I can see something very Latin from here," Ara pointed to a tent. 

'5-hour energy drinks' We both giggled. 

By the time we reached there, a Latin band was playing on stage. Looking at the agenda I assumed it was Herman Olivera. I didn't understand a word he said, but I thoroughly enjoyed the music. I, anyway, love music and dancing. Though, I didn't know Latin dancing, I couldn't stand still. 

We spent few minutes enjoying the music and looking at the couples who did well in latin dancing. Then we headed towards the stalls. There were many stalls with crafts, which I thought native to latin America. Ponchos, beaded jewellery, wooden toys and arts were the best among all. 

Ara offered to buy me anything I wanted. But, I couldn't picture myself going around wearing those heavy pieces of Jewelry. So, I had to decline that offer. Thinking about it now, I should have asked for a rain check. :-)

We slowly headed for the food area,it was the fun area. I'm not a big foodie, but, Ara was excited. They had mainly Mexican, Peruvian and Brazilian food. I could tell those were authentic, not because I couldn't pronounce a single name, because I have never even heard about those before. I thought Mexican is all about Tacos, Quesadillas and Tortillas. But, these vendors had much more variety. Salt level was a bit more than I would have liked, but everything tasted good. 

I treated myself with a nice Pina Colada, served in a Pineapple. It was fun, refreshing and tastier. I liked it so much, I forgot all about sharing until I got to the last bit. All Ara got was the bit of juice soaked to the pineapple. My bad!

This festival was a unique experience for me. For the first time in the three years I lived in USA, I felt like a tourist; a tourist visiting South America. I think it was the effect of the food, music and the people at the festival. 

I still don't know what I ate, or what they announced on stage, but I know if I have a chance I'll be going next year too!

For more information visit: http://www.festivallatino.net/

Fresh Food?

Whether you shop at a supermarket, Sunday fair or at an ordinary vegetable seller, you always look for fresh vegetables. Even after taking those vegetables, fish, and meat, home you still want to keep them fresh as long as possible. Due to the lack of knowledge, many food items are being wasted in large quantities.

Food safety and storage basics


When it comes to food safety, we need to be aware of spoilage and bacteria, which causes diseases. As a precaution start your awareness program by looking at the expiry date on the label.


The expiry date is valid only if you store the product as instructed on the label. For example the expiry date for yoghurt is usually two weeks from the manufactured date.


However if you keep it outside the refrigerator in warm weather for a few hours the yoghurt will spoil and it is not suitable to consume. Therefore, the expiry date is merely a good guideline.


It is considered that prepared or unpreserved foods between four degrees Celsius and 60 degrees Celsius are in the ‘danger zone’, which is not cold or hot enough to consider safe.


Therefore, when refrigerating those, first of all set your fridge temperature at four degrees Celsius or below and the freezer at -18 degrees Celsius or below.


Some refrigerators come with a built in thermometer, however if not you can easily buy an appliance thermometer to ensure that the temperatures are right.




Maximising food safety and flavour


If you want to keep the food in a regular temperature, the best place to keep is the refrigerator shelves. If you overload those shelves with food and containers, circulation of air will be blocked.


Something to be mindful of is never store fresh food on the door.


Nowadays, refrigerators come with special compartments for fish, meat, and vegetables, use them. They are specially designed to give the correct environment for those products.


When storing raw meat, keep those away from products such as cheese. Raw meat, poultry, and seafood should be kept in sealed containers to prevent the juices tainting other foods. If you are storing meat and poultry in the freezer in their original wrappings, make sure that you double-wrap it with foil to avoid freezer burn on the frozen meat.


When the veggies are stored in the freezer, to avoid any damage to the freshness, there is a method used called blanching. That is a fast dip in boiling water and an equally fast cool-down in cold water. This helps to preserve the colour and the taste of the vegetable.


The most common thing we refrigerate is the leftover food. Make sure that before putting those in to the freezer you place them in shallow containers for faster cooling. The most important thing is to keep your fridge clean. It keeps your food safe for a longer time.




Storing shelf staples


Staple food items such as sugar and flour, those which come in packages should be checked thoroughly before buying for ripped edges or for damage, after opening the package store those in sealed containers.


Lastly, whatever the precautions you take, if you are suspecting that a food item has gone bad, whether fresh, frozen, or at room temperature, immediately throw that away, do not even bother to taste.

Spices make your food delicious

Every one of you is sure to have heard about spices. Your mum uses them in her cooking and they add extra flavour to your food. If someone you know cooks yummy food, that is because he/she knows how to use spices properly.

Today, we are going to tell you some facts about spices. Spices are the main 100 per cent natural ingredient people use to add flavour and colour to the food they cook. Chilli, turmeric, pepper and condiments (thuna-paha) are the main spices we use everyday.

Spices not only add flavour to food, but they also have herbal components that kill harmful bacteria or prevent their growth, therefore keeping us away from illnesses. Do you know what properties are found in these spices? Let us explain them a bit to you.

Chilli is the fruit of the plants from the genus Capsicum, and helps add the hot flavour and colour to curries. As you may know, people in Asia love to use chilli in their curries as they want their dishes extra 'hot'. People mostly make chilli powder by drying the capsicum and grinding it.

Turmeric is the rhizome or underground stem of a ginger-like plant. It is usually available as tubes or ground into a bright yellow, fine powder. It is used in dishes to give them a nice yellow tinge and also successfully masks the odour of fish and meat. It is also said that turmeric fights harmful bacteria.

Pepper is another popular spice. We usually use dried fruits, known as peppercorns, to make pepper powder. Depending on the harvest time and the method of processing, peppercorns can be black, white, green or red. Black pepper is most commonly used in our kitchens.

Pepper is used in almost every kind of dish to add them flavour.The next variety is the famous thuna-paha. People choose three or five different spices to make mixed curry powder; for example, coriander, cardamom, cumin, cinnamon and fennel are some of the spices which may be used to make thuna-paha. Now you know about some of the commonly used spices. But you should also be aware about their quality as they are used in food. After all it concerns your health.

Cinnamon

As you may know, some people adulterate (make something impure) spices by mixing them with various other things. They do this to increase the quantity of spices they sell so they can make more profit.

People mix sand, salt, flour, straw, poonac, sawdust and chaff (the layer which covers grains) with the spices. Because of the adulteration of spices, the quality of the spices goes down and the flavours they infuse into food become different; most importantly, this could badly affect your health. To find out if salt has been added to your spices, you can taste any of the spices you have bought. If it tastes like salt, then you know that salt has been added.

It is very common to see papaw seeds being mixed with peppercorns. To see if this has been done, place some peppercorns in water and keep for a while. If you find any seeds floating, they are papaw seeds and not pepper. Obviously, they wouldn't taste like pepper too!