Gourmet coffee: the new wine

One time when I was having my teeth cleaned the hygienist told me I had a stain on one of my back teeth: she said it was either coffee or wine.

“It’s coffee,” I said. “It has to be. I drink a heck of a lot more coffee than wine.”

Yes, I’ve written a wine-pairing cookbook, but that’s because coffee doesn’t grow in Central Washington State. I know something about wine, but I don’t drink it every day…unlike coffee. My closest friends know not to ask me for anything in the morning before my cup of coffee, and although my daily consumption is rarely more than a cup or two, it has been an essential, ritualistic part of pretty much every morning since high school.

I started drinking coffee one Lent when I gave up sweets. I needed something to take its place. Yes, I am addicted. Yes, I probably should not drink it on a regular basis, but you know what? I grew up in the Pacific Northwest when Starbucks took off; in a region of the world strangely far from the coffee-growing areas near the equator, I started to be steeped in the culture far before I liked the taste as much as the smell.

I ended up in Boquete by accident: I started off on the Caribbean coast of Panama, where cacao (chocolate) is the bigger and more well-known crop. To grow coffee you need a mountainous region, preferably (I’ve learned) an eastern-facing slope, with lots of water and drainage. Boquete has all of that: the town itself is nestled in a river valley at the base of Volcán Barú, Panama’s only volcano, and it has more steep coffee-covered slopes than you would think possible. There are a lot of little draws between mountainous ridges here, creating slopes galore for growing coffee.

Some of the best coffee in the world is grown here. Of the two major types of coffee, Arabica is the higher quality type grown in this region; Robusta – used for Folgers and other low quality coffees – is mostly grown in Brazil. Within Arabica, there are several varietals, including Geisha, which, when grown in the absolutely most perfect conditions, picked and roasted using the highest standards, can sell for up to $300 A POUND.

Sound familiar yet? Wine is grown the same way: a good winemaker or sommelier can tell you the varietal, the area it came from, and the essences and hints of flavors within each sip. It is no different with coffee. Instead of wine tasting, you do a “cupping,” but the process is the same: you start with the nose, take a small sip, open your mouth slightly to let the flavor hit the air, and see if you can pinpoint the flavor on the front of your tongue and the back of your throat.

Starbucks may have started the coffee craze in Washington, but its coffee has nothing on what Boquete has to offer. After I grew tired of over-sweetened, milk drenched lattes, I found that I didn’t like the flavor of Starbucks coffee: even though I like dark roast, theirs tasted burnt.

Not long ago I finally stopped putting cream and sugar in my coffee. Not because I wanted to, mind you, but because a chronic issue with candida made me, “Look, Morgan,” it said. “Either you lose the cream and sugar, or you lose the coffee altogether.” I couldn’t do it, so I gave up the cream (well, milk actually, which I already knew was not good for my system especially) and the sugar to salvage my morning coffee ritual. And suddenly, I could taste it: the chocolate overtones, the dark richness of the freshly roasted beans, and the difference between each of the coffees I was trying. I found I could drink more without the dizzying and buzzed side effects I used to get, but I actually wanted to drink less: without the creamy sugar craving, coffee became a rich and subtle flavor all in itself.  

So even though wine is a bigger thing, and even though it can get you drunk and oftentimes makes a better gift to a friend, I feel like I’ve finally found my place: it’s not one coffee shop, but many of them, in a town on a river in the mountains. 

For more information about growing coffee, check out Rachel Northrup's soon-to-be published book: When Coffee Speaks.

For more information about growing coffee in Boquete specifically, check out Elizabeth Worley's just published book, Romancing the Bean: Chronicles of a Coffee Snob in Panama. 

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa with Pork Shoulder

Sometimes you need something sweet: sweet and delicious. After a reemergence of candida, I have unfortunately been unable to indulge. Candida is an evil yeast (technical term) that lives in your intestinal tract and feeds off of sugars, especially when your immune system is compromised by a lack of good bacteria, something that might happen if you have had too many rounds of antibiotics.

I digress. The point here is that I cannot currently eat any sugars of any type: no table sugar obviously, but also no fruit, no dairy products, no carbohydrates of any kind, and no root vegetables, either. Forget alcohol. I cannot describe just how much this sucks, especially when you enjoy food as much as I do, but also because it makes going out to eat nearly impossible. The only things that are really ON the menu are greens, meat and nuts, but only nuts that aren’t likely to get moldy: no peanuts. Oh, no vinegars either. And maybe stay away from caffeine. SHOOT ME NOW.

There is a bright spot in all of this. It is called roasted tomatillo salsa over pork shoulder. It is never better to be a concoctionist than when your diet must be restricted: it’s sort of the opposite of Iron Chef, where you have one ingredient to incorporate into all dishes. With candida, you are low on options, but not so low that there is nothing available. So, without further ado, here’s a delicious recipe of something that comfort even the most candida-riddled gut:

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa with Pork Shoulder

I got inspirations from these recipes that I found online. I was looking for a traditional tomatillo chile verde recipe, but being in Panama I don’t have access to the same chiles that they have in Mexico. However, thisone was a good place to start. (Sorry kids, it's in Spanish, but you can use a translator app if you can't read it). I didn’t really like how they recommended cooking the pork, however, so I used this recipe more closely for the pork directions.

Pork:

4 -5 lbs pork shoulder, bone in, trimmed of excess surface fat 

3 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons pure chile powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon granulated or minced garlic
1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon lime zest

You cannot buy pork shoulder on the bone in Boquete, so I just got pork shoulder off the bone. (If you can get pork shoulder on the bone, DO IT. It means the meat will be more tender when it’s done).  I rubbed it with the spices described in the recipe, but I found that the portions weren’t enough, so I pretty much tripled them. Then I added a chile lime dry rub that my friend had in his cupboard.

I did not use a disposable pan; I’m not quite sure why that is considered important. Instead, I rubbed the pork shoulder with the spices and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Then I browned it in the oven at 500 degrees for about 30 minutes.

While the meat was resting and browning, I made the salsa.

Tomatillos are a green tomato that grows inside a paper-like sheath. They’re a staple of Mexican green salsas, and have a really tangy almost citrus-like flavor. 

Salsa:

1 pound of tomatillos, cut in half and roasted in a dry pan.
2 serrano chiles, or another spicy chile if serranos aren't available (I used deseeded habañeros)
4 cloves of garlic, roasted
1 onion, cut into thick slices and roasted
1 large bunch of cilantro, washed

The recipe didn’t call for it, but I cut the tomatillos in half and roasted them in a dry cast iron pan along with the onions and garlic. The goal is to get them to start to carmelize without burning them too much. Once I was finished roasting them, I added about a cup of water to the pan not only to clean it but to “deglaze” it to some extent. (I’m not sure you can use that term if you’re not talking about meat, but that’s what I did. I then poured the liquid, the tomatillos, onions and garlic into a food processor, added a handful of cilantro and two deseeded habañero peppers and blended it. At that point, add salt to taste, remembering that there is also salt in the pork rub. 

One note about peppers: when I first tried the salsa before baking it on the pork, it was a lot spicier. If you’re really into spice, add more peppers or keep the seeds in, knowing that the salsa will mellow as it cooks.

Once the meat has browned, remove it from the oven, douse it in the tomatillo salsa and cover with foil. Lower the heat in the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit and put the pork back in.

The original recipe said to cook for 2 1/2 hours. It was done before then, but as my friend Nate (who is much better with cooking meat than I am) pointed out that the longer it’s in there, the more tender it will get.

The only downside to this dish was that the pork did not seem tender enough. However, Nate pointed out that that has to do with the way it’s cut here, and the fact that it was not available with the bone in. Like I said before: if you’ve got an option for pork shoulder with the bone in, DO IT.

Otherwise, it was DELICIOUS, and even better the next day. Although the tomatillo salsa is pretty good by itself, the juices from the pork make it A LOT better. See? Not all candida diet food needs to be tasteless crap.