Looking for my author page for Roseheart?

Please visit  www.catherinedehdashti.com, for Roseheart book trailers, media kit, recipes, and slightly better pictures of me.

Looking for my resume?

Please see my resume if you are looking to hire an experienced communicator. I appreciate your interest.
Browse my writing clips and other blog posts below and in my archive if you are interested in food, education, environment, agriculture, and essays on work-life balance and life with children.

The best fish tacos in San Diego, please. Hold the kids

By Catherine Dehdashti, 

After my trip to Europe with kids last summer, I was ready for an adventure without them. My husband, Mohammad, had a conference in San Diego—giving me the perfect opportunity to tuck our boy and girl away with their Memaw and create my own adventure. Fish tacos are a San Diego specialty, so I decided that would be it—I’d go on a five-day fish taco bender.

"Mividita" catfish tacos at Mama Testa

For my first lunch, I went to Mama Testà Taqueria, where I ordered the $8 Mividita, corn tortillas fried in place “Guerrero style” around fried catfish with coleslaw and queso fresco, served with rice and beans. Being my first meal away from the kids, I could have sworn that when the plate came I heard a girl’s voice “Ew, what’s that sauce?” and a boy “Why are these radish thingies on my taco?” I looked around and remembered I was all alone. I asked the waitress to recommend a beer.

 I’m not sure if the catfish was farmed or wild or sustainable or whatever. I’m not Michael Pollan of the Sea. I’m not even impressed that Mama Testà beat Bobby Flay in a Taco Throwdown. I’m just a woman who was shocked to realize it was just me and my fish taco, and a damn good beer at 11:30 a.m., and that nobody was judging me. And that the first joint I visited offered five homemade salsas, and I hadn’t been the one to burn my fingers roasting peppers over the open flame. It was a happy day.

George’s at the Cove’s Ocean Terrace online reviews promised a special, whimsical homage to the San Diegan fish taco. The ocean view in La Jolla sounded right for our first date night. Even with the February evening temps in the 50s, the gas warmers made it feel like a summer night. The service was excellent, and the wine selection good. I’d read that this precious taco was made with yellowfin tuna. I’d read that they fried the avocado, that it didn’t have or need tortillas, and all other manner of myth about chef Trey Foshee’s “deconstructed” fish taco.

Fish taco at George's at the Cove Ocean Terrace

It was a starry night, and we don’t have enough of those alone and never with palm trees and ocean in view. Mohammad ordered us an impressive grilled local octopus as a starter, and for himself a perfect Loch Duart salmon with farro salad and pesto. 

But if you are all about finding the best fish taco, by George, this wasn’t it. It wasn’t that it wasn’t worth $12. The fish, which tasted more like swordfish, was better than your average taqueria fish. But it was otherwise average, a few chips of mango and a smear of jalapeno crème fraiche that didn’t have any heat. I mean, look at it. But again, the terrace’s ocean view—priceless!

The next day, it was time to scrap and save. When you search for “best CHEAP fish tacos” on the internet, you get some wildly different opinions. Some of the slams, possibly, are those of the competitor, such as the one below when my search led me to Oscar’s Mexican Seafood. Would you go here if this is what you found on your Google map?

Worrisome review on worrisome map page says "Their food always comes out cold and even tasted like pure GARBAGE!..."

To be fair, the Google Map photo must have been taken before Oscar’s moved out of their truck and into this spot. (By the way, lots of reviews said Oscar’s tacos were “the bomb” and “dope.”) It still looks mostly just like the photo, but there are some tables and stools outside now, and a nice mural painting on the wall of the original Oscar’s food truck.

Fish taco at Oscar's Mexican Seafood

When we walked in, we may have looked a little frightened. A customer with movie-star looks assured us we were in for a treat. We ordered fish tacos, of course. What kind of fish was it? Gosh, I was a little nervous. I forgot to ask. Then I got too busy smothering it in their homemade sauces (go with the jalapeno cream sauce, which was much tastier than George’s) and scarfing it down with a coconut drink while Mohammad went back for spicy shrimp and octopus tacos.

Just goes to show that sometimes the place you think you should definitely not cross the doorstep of is the place you must try. And if you think octopus sounds “gross” or “weird,” maybe you should just stay home with your Memaw.

Octopus taco at Oscar's Mexican Seafood

 So Oscar’s had been a cheap night for sure—maybe $20 for five tacos and beverages, and all good. So maybe the tortillas weren’t house-made, but they were fine.

We thought we’d spend our savings in the Gaslamp District. I know, we’d scrimped at Oscar’s to make up for our L a Jolla meal. But remember, Mohammad and I are a date-deprived couple 2,000 miles away from our children for five days, so we aren’t going to just go to one fancy-pants place. This is what credit cards are for. Saltbox was getting good reviews, and its menu looked right up my alley.

Shishito peppers at Saltbox

Our appetizer, the flash-fried shishito peppers with lemon-ginger cream, may just look like a pile of vegetables, but it was one of the best things I ate in San Diego and it was worth going there just for that. So was the rum and sage drink I had called “The Silent D.”

If only the woman at the table next to us had been like a silent D. Some diners are so obnoxious. But, I tuned her out, and when my, uh, fish taco, came, I made my best fish face. I wanted to become friends with that whole fried bass, she was so beautiful.

Feeling an affinity with whole bass taco at Saltbox

Now, $28 for enough fish taco for two people (although I ate most of it myself) is not entirely ridiculous. That bass was probably the equal of at least four Oscar’s tacos, and came with a bowl of black-eyed peas and fresh, thick corn tortillas. On Tuesday nights, it’s only $15. I ate as much as I could, crunchy fried bass skin and all. Well, not all. I left its head--I’m not Andrew Zimmern.

Marisco's German Taco Truck

Finding Marisco’s German Taco Truck was the most maddening odyssey of the trip. They don’t have a website, nor do they tweet or do anything to help customers find them, but the Yelp site shows right where to find them in South Park. Apparently they have trucks in other neighborhoods, but the South Park one is most reliable. Before going to the Yelp site, I’d driven first to Point Loma looking for the truck that was supposed to be near the beach. One website had said to look behind the Fold and Fluff laundry. It wasn’t there. I kept driving and found a whole street devoted to medical marijuana. That would’ve been a good neighborhood for it, perhaps in front of the “Stuff to Puff’ store.



Marisco's German Taco Truck shrimp and octopus tacos

Once I found the truck, which by the way is not German in any way that I could tell, I got in line. It was in the parking lot of an IGA Gala Foods, but there were more people there for Marisco’s than for the grocery store. Once I got my $4 tacos and a glass bottle of Coke, I sat on a wooden stool in that parking lot, and put my plate on another stool.

The shrimp and fish were deep-fried, but not at all greasy. The corn tortillas, while perhaps not housemade, were just right. The people serving the goods from the truck window were friendly, and the extra fixings and sauces were fresh, free, and plentiful. The octopus, like at Oscar’s, was marinated and grilled. And it was, as one review had said, “totally dope.”   

Marisco’s was parked in the least comfortable and least scenic setting possible, and don’t even think about getting a beer or a drink. No bathrooms--not even in the grocery store, not even if you begged.

It was too bad Marisco's German wasn't still parked in Point Loma by the beach, but…I’d found my best fish tacos in San Diego.

Roof of Carnita's Snack Shack

I heard about lots of places I didn’t go, so if you’re a local and you’ve been to South Beach or El Zarape or another place that you think is the true dope, please leave a comment. Carnita’s Snack Shack gets lots of love for its ahi tuna taco, but I didn’t go. I arrived at ten minutes after 12 and they were closed. A woman came out and went to her car.  I asked what time they opened. She said “Noon,” and then sped away. I didn’t go back. Maybe I missed something, but I have a feeling that place was really more about the pork. Just a guess.

Lots of people are saying the best place to get a taco around San Diego nowadays is Tijuana. We just didn’t have time, and we hadn’t brought our passports. But next time Memaw wants to watch the kids, we’re totally there.

Europe with kids: it irks

Travel magazine articles and other parents made it sound educational, enlightening. Maybe it depends on the family.

By Catherine Dehdashti

While planning our family trip to France and Italy, we learned that Venice was built out in the hard-to-reach wetlands by Italians escaping hordes of invaders. By the time we arrived there, we couldn’t help but think Venice might have also been a good escape from our travel companions: our 8-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl.

Our hotel was a palazzo that had been in the owner's family for eight generations. There was a big, brocade-covered bed for us, and canopy beds on the other side of a wall dividing us from the kids. There was a fancy bidet—hilarious to our boy, and admittedly refreshing to us after a long train ride and the walk up and down over canal bridges in the August heat.

While I was still discovering the lovely details in the room—like a medieval out-of-use door, Sam started jumping wildly on his bed. I feared getting kicked out. I screeched at Sam to stop jumping, so he did, but then he thought it would funny to “fart on the old door,” which was right on the other side of the wall from the hotel owner’s desk. Sam backed up to the beautiful door and let one rip.

Sam is always full of springs and noises and at the end of days when the rest of us are too tired to sit up. I don’t want to make excuses for rudeness, but maybe he craves attention because, at home, my husband and I work too much. In fact, I worked weekends proctoring exams for private testing companies to help pay for this trip.

The hotel owner kindly looked away when we emerged from our room to go exploring. The exploring didn't go as planned, but it was par for the course.

I thought I’d arranged a pretty kid-friendly trip. When we were in Nice, for example, I only planned to go to one museum: the Matisse. Sam stopped in his tracks like a stubborn mule. “Matisse sucks,” he said.

“Please don’t say ‘sucks,’” I said. “Matisse irks.”

‘Irks’ is the better vocabulary word I tried to teach my kids to say instead of ‘sucks.’ I thought it sounded kind of edgy, like something that could really take off. In five years, my kids would know it was their own mother who started it all.

“The word ‘irks’ sounds idiotic,” Sam said.

I dragged him in anyway, but Sam and his dad breezed through in ten minutes and then wanted to go to the park to watch local men play the French ball game called pétanque. Authentic French culture, I conceded. Fine. Anyways I didn’t have a choice. My husband had agreed with Sam, saying “Matisse is overrated.”

I’d read several of those articles about traveling with kids in Europe that make it look like a good idea. But once there, I wondered if those articles are just trying to help parents make the best out of their questionable decision. I’d based a lot of our plans on the articles’ advice, for example allowing extra time for the Louvre in Paris because I’d been reading about all the things kids enjoy in the Jardin des Tuileries right outside of the museum.

The article said that the Jardin des Tuileries has toy boats the kids can sail around in the fountain pools. A photo showed a girl about my son’s age romping in the fountain with her toy boat. It was 94 degrees in Paris on our day, so I couldn't wait to get knee-deep in the fountain myself.

We stepped off the metro to find no toy boats there at all. A sign said that it was “interdite” to go into the fountain. The kids walked right by all of the statues and the views and begged to buy cheap sunglasses and Eiffel Tower keychains from the unlicensed vendors who troll the garden.

 Still, I forged ahead looking for a balance of arts and culture and fun things for bratty American kids to do. I entertained no illusions about conquering the whole Louvre. I really just wanted the kids to see the Michelangelo sculptures, the Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa. But by the time you walk to all of those, you’ve seen a lot more.

Sam was out of his mind by the time we reached the Mona Lisa and refused to look at it. I had to hold his head in a vice grip and point it at the DaVinci painting. “Look at her smile,” I growled. He focused just long enough to get me to let go. I started feeling like I was just stringing together tourist obligations into a vacation. Mona Lisa: check.

I guess I just had higher expectations. When your kids go to French Immersion school, they have friends who sometimes go stay for months in France, or Belgium, or Francophone countries like Martinique and Cameroon. While other parents might think it’s a waste to take kids to Europe when they could be too young to remember, some French Immersion parents do it every year.

None of the other parents have ever mentioned to me that their kids didn’t relish the opportunity to soak up all the language and culture. None of them had kids who had declared: “I hate art and history,” like Sam did on the Pont d’Avignon.

Most art and history anyways. Sam did like the glassblowing demonstration on the Venetian island of Murano. He said he might become a glassblower and train there, but he’d only want to have his business in Minnesota. It’s hot enough work already with the glass-melting ovens and the fire, he said. “You need to be somewhere where you can go outside and roll around in the snow after you make something.”

He’s really a good kid, I was reminded when Sam insisted on giving 2-Euro coins to beggars. “Mom, how would you feel if you were poor?” he asked. He kept coins in the pockets of his cargo shorts so he could donate at will. He also saved baguette crumbs in his pockets so he could feed pigeons.

After a while though, he got more selective and started stepping right over some of the beggars. Eventually, only the women lying dramatically across sidewalks got coins in their outstretched Dixie cups. He slowed down on feeding the pigeons too.

At 12, our daughter Zari was on her iPad during much of the trip, and showed a shocking lack of thirst for the culture after seven years of French Immersion school. She wanted to go shopping in all of the American-style stores in Paris, even though we have the same stores near us because we live ten minutes from the Mall of America.

Zari seemed more intent on doing her back-to-school shopping in Paris than on experiencing the most iconic neighborhoods and attractions in Europe. “What’s Montmarte and who cares?” she asked. “I want to go to the Abercrombie on the Champs-Élysées.”

She snapped some amazing photos with special kaleidoscoping effects on that iPad though. Those of the Eiffel Tower look like lacy black handkerchiefs modeled into modern abstract patterns.

But she’d seen so much of the voyage through the lens of the iPad instead of her own wondering eyes. Sam borrowed it at the Louvre to take kaleidoscope images of sculptural penises, butts, and breasts.

Zari suggested we punish him for being inappropriate, but I didn’t let her delete the photos because at least he had engaged with the art.

I think it had been a culture shock for our kids to be in Europe, where the focus isn’t on making children feel entertained and instantly gratified. They liked the French Riviera beaches, at least, and Italian gelato. And they’d played with the grandkids of a family we spent a night with in the Rhone Valley.

The Rhone Valley couple’s daughter had lived with us for seven months when she was a teaching intern at our kids’ school. Our former intern couldn’t be there at her parents’ house though. Teaching at an American school had perhaps been the impetus for her change in career path, so she is studying nursing in Belgium now.

At the last minute, our former intern said she could come down to France and meet up with us after all. She had a ride from a friend with passes to a place she just knew the kids would love: Disneyland Paris. Seeing our former intern had been one of our highest hopes for the trip, and one of the only things the kids cared about. So we instantly said yes, even though I’d planned our last day in Europe for Dijon.

Somewhere in the middle of the “It’s a Small World” ride I realized that seeing our old intern friend and her family was the best part of the trip. Friends and family matter more than my tourist checklist of cities and sites. Then I got homesick for the U.S. and a little sad, because usually when we’re on the Small World ride we are at Disneyland in California visiting my younger sister who moved there, and I miss her all of the time.

Even though I’d nearly lost it a couple of times and wondered if our kids were spoiled beyond repair—and even though I’d almost told Sam to go jump in the canal in Venice and been tempted to leave Zari at the Claire’s in the cavernous Les Halles in Paris—when we returned home, our family seemed closer.

In the end, I’m glad we took the kids to Europe. The kids have become more patient, and maybe I have too. It irked, but it did not suck--it turns out the two don't mean the same thing afterall. I think we’ll all have good memories of the trip. And if the kids don’t remember, at least they’ll have those iPad photos to remind them.

Walk this way: meetings don't have to involve tables and chairs

My organization's magazine isn't really a magazine. We call it that, but it's just 12 pages. With such a small team, though, it takes a few months to go from brainstorming to landing in mailboxes and online. I only wrote some of the smaller articles in our most recent issue, but enjoyed directing photo shoots.

It's already time to plan the next issue, which means a lot of meetings and phone calls. I've been reading lately about the dangers of sitting too much, which sounds a little overly dramatic. I mean, how dangerous is it really to sit on a chair? Apparently, it's quite dangerous if you are doing it for hours and hours each day. And that's what happens when the work at hand calls for lots of meetings.

I have one of those bouncy exercise balls, but I don't like to sit on it for long. I'm not interested in one of those standing-up desks, so I'm certainly not going to propose my team conduct our meetings standing around in a conference room (although a stretch break here and there would help).

What if places of work conducted more meetings while walking? I work on what used to be called the ag campus of my university. We have horticultural gardens, sculptures, horticultural research gardens and crop fields. The University has invested in our campus--why don't we leave the meeting rooms behind and get out to look around during our planning meetings when the weather is good?

Roving bands of university communicators could walk, talk, and plan an editorial lineup--why not? Sure, we might need to stop and take notes, but that's what benches are for. Then we could continue on our way, forming new ideas as our brains benefit from the movement. We just might find some new stories to tell along our path.

Cookbooks: A Caribbean state of mind

Published at Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 19, 2012
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/taste/147967815.html

"Tastes Like Home" offers taste, memories of Guyana and the islands.

BY CATHERINE DEHDASHTI, Special to the Star Tribune

Cynthia Nelson is the author of "Tastes Like Home: My Caribbean Cookbook."

I've enjoyed countless Caribbean dishes at dinner parties without ever lifting a single Scotch bonnet pepper. My friend Pauline does it so well, why should I bother?

At least that's how I felt before I discovered "Tastes Like Home: My Caribbean Cookbook" (Ian Randle Publishers, 335 pages, $34.95), by Cynthia Nelson.

The diverse Caribbean style of cooking was formed from the melding of cultures: African, Indian, European, Chinese and indigenous cuisines in the Caribbean islands and the coastal South American nation of Guyana.

"Our foreparents who came to these shores, whether as masters, servants or slaves, brought with them their food cultures," writes Nelson, a journalist from Guyana who now lives in Barbados.

One hundred straightforward recipes with photos provide a well-rounded taste of this culinary history. In addition to the recipes, 34 essays reflect on holiday celebrations, Nelson's memories of family gatherings and her favorite dishes.

One of my favorites of hers was polenta with okra, called cou-cou, which originally called for flying fish in a spicy tomato broth. I brought it to one of Pauline's dinner parties, confessing I'd used tilapia in place of the flying fish. I also brought curried bottle gourd to the gathering, using one of the gourds I find at Southeast Asian vendors at local farmers markets.

Fried savories and breads are traditional -- many are festival foods -- so Nelson takes a no-apologies approach in presenting them. Batter-fried cassava balls, with creamy centers of cassava root mashed with savory seasonings, were gone in a hurry at my house. Phulourie, a split-pea fritter made for the Hindu festival of Holi, made a spicy late-night snack served with mango-tamarind chutney.

Several dishes in the book can be prepared quickly, such as yard-long beans and shrimp, easily a new weeknight favorite. Similarly, a pumpkin and shrimp sauté goes well with rice or roti. Other dishes take more time, so I put on some Calypso music and made an afternoon of cooking mettagee (salt cod cooked in fresh-pressed coconut milk with root vegetables and dumplings).

Some dishes require planning ahead, such as a black cake that requires months to soak the fruits in rum. Pauline, always ready with rum-soaked fruit, brought one to my house when I hosted my first Caribbean dinner party. I put it on the dessert table next to the conkies -- puddings made from cornmeal, coconut, pumpkin and rum-soaked raisins, steamed in individual packages made of banana leaves.

What tastes like home to Nelson and my friend Pauline was an adventure for me. But it's one I'll keep going with the help of Nelson's cookbook and her blog at www.tasteslikehome.org.

I've found a source of sun-splashed inspiration, and now I finally understand why Pauline has so many parties.

Catherine Dehdashti, a freelance writer from Eagan, can be reached at cdehdashti@yahoo.com.

WHERE TO BUY

 Many Caribbean ingredients can be found at large grocery stores, farmers markets, and Indian, African and Asian markets.

A local store that specializes in Caribbean foods: Galaxy Food & Video, 7128 Chicago Av. S., Richfield, 612-861-7410, www.galfoods.com.

Recipe
SAUTÉED YARD-LONG BEANS AND SHRIMP
Serves 3.

Note: Yard-long beans are also known as Chinese long beans, or "bora" in the Caribbean. Yard-long beans should have their ends trimmed. Fresh green beans may be substituted, but be sure to remove their strings. Wear rubber gloves when working with Scotch bonnet peppers, which are very hot, to avoid burning your skin. Remove the seeds and start with 1/2 of 1 pepper unless you are accustomed to high heat. Serve with rice or the Caribbean flat bread called roti. From "Tastes Like Home: My Caribbean Cookbook," by Cynthia Nelson.

• 2 tbsp. canola oil

• 1 c. small raw shrimp (use medium size if you cannot find small)

• 1 small onion, diced (1/2 c.)

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 2 sprigs fresh thyme

• 1 Scotch bonnet pepper to taste, finely minced (see Note)

• 1/2 c. diced tomatoes

• Salt to taste

• 4 c. yard-long beans, cut in 1/2-in. pieces (see Note)

Directions

Heat oil in wok or large frying pan until almost smoking. Add shrimp and stir-fry for 1 minute only. Remove shrimp to a bowl and set aside.

Add onions to pan and sauté 1 to 2 minutes (if pan needs more oil, add a drizzle). Add garlic, thyme, Scotch bonnet pepper and tomatoes. Continue to sauté for about 1 minute. Season with salt.

Add yard-long beans and mix all ingredients thoroughly, cover, reduce heat to simmer and let cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until beans are cooked through. (Cook less time if you prefer beans al dente.)

About 2 minutes before the beans are done, stir in shrimp and finish cooking with pan uncovered.

Nutrition information per serving:

Calories 206 Fat 10 g Sodium 460 mg
Carbohydrates 16 g Saturated fat 1 g Calcium 120 mg
Protein 14 g Cholesterol 102 mg Dietary fiber 5 g
Diabetic exchanges per serving: 3 vegetable, 1 lean meat, 1 1/2 fat

Teaching the kids to roll their own

12-year-olds rolling sushi

I’ve always liked to roll things: long loaves of stromboli, Bûche de Noël cakes, stuffed grape leaves. My high school boyfriend counted on me to roll his joints, but that seems like it was a million years ago.

There’s a zen type of pleasure in the act of layering ingredients then rolling them up and slicing to see cross-sections of color and texture. Somehow, in all my years of cooking, I had never rolled my own sushi—until last night.

Some friends wanted to mark the coming-to-an-end of seven years of our girls being in a French Immersion school together. It’s a magnet school in St. Paul, so girls and boys come from far and wide for the elementary years. They form a learning community that transcends neighborhood boundaries.

About half continue on in a middle school French program while others scatter back to their neighborhood schools or other places. The girls have been tight, and it’s hard to think they won’t see each other daily for much longer. There has been a lot of reminiscing.

But these moms wanted to have a chance to look forward as well—to let the girls hang out as we women gathered over glasses of sake and bottles of Japanese Sapporo beer to discuss where each girl will be next year.

My daughter will go to our suburban neighborhood middle school. Her entrance into the teen years is a great source of anxiety for me—probably because I still remember all the bad choices I made during those years (that above-mentioned boyfriend, for example). I jumped at the chance to huddle with the other moms over our bamboo rolling mats.

One host-mother, Dawn (otherwise known as Lily’s Mom) found the sushi chef. Cheiko, Dawn’s neighbor, isn’t actually a chef (she explained to our girls’ that for a long time in Japan women could not be, which our girls could hardly fathom). But she had what it took to teach 16 mother-daughter pairs: experience, ingredients, and patience.

The other host, Lisa (A.K.A., Elise’s Mom) supplied the party house with the kitchen large enough for this big group. She also offered alternatives for those girls who were not quite ready for sushi even though we were starting with California rolls and not raw fish.

Some girls ate the sushi as if they’d been eating it all their lives. Others ate pizza and played around, making walrus faces by hanging a chopstick from each nostril. They then retired to the basement to watch “Hairspray” while the women ended the evening gathered around the kitchen’s center island with green-tea ice cream and sorbets.

There are six weeks left before we mark the end of the school year with the new tradition of elementary school graduation. The girls have been shopping for their dresses for this rite of passage.

Ready or not, my girl’s teen years are coming. But as my friends assure me, she will do great. She’s confident and wise already beyond her years. And if she does run into a few bumps (or bad boys) in the road, she’ll get over them just like I did. She’s ready to roll.