Frying Plantain Quotes

I pointed to it. "Yuca," Noah said. I pointed to the dough balls. "Fried plantains." I pointed to a low bowl filled with what purported to be stew, but then Noah said, "Are you going to point, or are you going to eat?

She had to know what I’d only just now discovered: that peace could only exist in this family when we lied about everything, at least to each other.

It had taken three different sleepovers at three different houses for me to realize that not all families worked this way.

Being careful with my words and measuring my tone, speaking at all, is harder.

peace could only exist in this family when we lied about everything, at least to each other.

As a kid I’d made the mistake of offering up overly complicated explanations, thinking that the more detailed I was, the more her doubt would ebb. Those explanations usually ended up revealing some kind of secret I wasn’t even aware I was keeping from her. Now I knew to say as little as possible.

I feel the mechanics of his touch, of his hands on my skin, on my waist, on my breasts, all the things that are supposed to make me ache. Wet splotches smack against my neck, and I'm reminded of my first kiss with the first boy I ever made out with. Terrance Peters. I didn't feel much of anything then, either. I wonder if I can, if I ever will.

So, I am a refugee, and I get very lonely. Is it my fault if I do not look like an English girl and I do not talk like a Nigerian? Well who says an English girl must have skin as pale as the clouds that float across her summers? Who says a Nigerian girl must speak in fallen English, as if English had collided with Ibo, high in the upper atmosphere, and rained down into her mouth in a shower that half-drowns her and leaves her choking up sweet tales about the bright African colours and the taste of fried plantain? Not like a storyteller, but like a victim rescued from the flood, coughing up the colonial water from her lungs? Excuse me for learning your language properly. I am here to tell you a real story. I did not come to talk to you about the bright African colours. I am a born-again citizen of the developing world, and I will prove to you that the colour of my life is grey.

One of his great pleasures is overdoing it with the groceries, involving several stops at little markets, cheese shops, the East Haven lady who makes her own Thai BBQ sauce and fries up a bag of plantains for him while he waits. At our old house, we had a refrigerator just for condiments. Even now, my older daughter always says, How can you be only two people and never have an empty fridge? That’s Brian, I say, buyer of burrata, soppressata, Meyer lemons, white peaches, Benton’s ham.

He has already mastered (or become quite proficient at) a number of skills and techniques such as braises, fricassees, roasting, searing, and sautéing. He was already well versed in pie and pastry making, so teaching him laminated pastry and more difficult cakes and confectionary has proceeded much faster than I anticipated. (I suspect Helena feels the same, though she always pretends to be nonplussed at his progress.) His knowledge and interest in the dishes of other cultures also continues to surprise me. His empanadas, it seems, were only the tip of the bavarois. He makes a delightful curry after the East Indian style, and his fried plantains (both the sweet maduros and the crispy double-fried green ones) have become my new favorite snack before our evening meal. You would love them, Nanay, I am certain. Nanay, I've also taught him most of the rice dishes in my repertoire (as Helena continues to find rice to be rather lowly---though she eats risotto and paella readily enough when they're on the table), and although he was surprised when I first showed him plain, unadulterated rice as you make it, he soon gobbled it up and has been experimenting with more Eastern-inspired rice dishes and desserts and puddings ever since.

They have the kinds of things we can eat.' An unease crept up on Ifemelu. She was comfortable here, and she wished she were not. She wished, too, that she were not so interested in this new restaurant, did not perk up, imagining fresh green salads and steamed still-firm vegetables. She loved eating all the things she had missed while away, jollof rice cooked with a lot of oil, fried plantains, boiled yams, but she longed, also, for the other things she had become used to in America, even quinoa, Blaine's specialty, made with feta and tomatoes. This was what she hoped she had not become but feared that she had: a "they have the kinds of things we can eat" kind of person.

So to avoid the twin dangers of nostalgia and despairing bitterness, I'll just say that in Cartagena we'd spend a whole month of happiness, and sometimes even a month and a half, or even longer, going out in Uncle Rafa's motorboat, La Fiorella, to Bocachica to collect seashells and eat fried fish with plantain chips and cassava, and to the Rosary Islands, where I tried lobster, or to the beach at Bocagrande, or walking to the pool at the Caribe Hotel, until we were mildly burned on our shoulders, which after a few days started peeling and turned freckly forever, or playing football with my cousins, in the little park opposite Bocagrande Church, or tennis in the Cartagena Club or ping-pong in their house, or going for bike rides, or swimming under the little nameless waterfalls along the coast, or making the most of the rain and the drowsiness of siesta time to read the complete works of Agatha Christie or the fascinating novels of Ayn Rand (I remember confusing the antics of the architect protagonist of The Fountainhead with those of my uncle Rafael), or Pearl S. Buck's interminable sagas, in cool hammocks strung up in the shade on the terrace of the house, with a view of the sea, drinking Kola Roman, eating Chinese empanadas on Sundays, coconut rice with red snapper on Mondays, Syrian-Lebanese kibbeh on Wednesdays, sirloin steak on Fridays and, my favourite, egg arepas on Saturday mornings, piping hot and brought fresh from a nearby village, Luruaco, where they had the best recipe.

It was a popular and trendy neighborhood, but there was something bland about the bars and restaurants we visited. San Diego was nice - nice weather, nice beaches, and nice people - but it wasn't great. The diversity and texture I'd come to appreciate on the East Coast seemed to have been smoothed away by the surf and sand in sunny SoCal. I missed the tiny Ecuadorian restaurant a block from our Baltimor row home that served the best fried plantains, and our tiny local pub where we knew all the bartenders and they knew what we liked to drink. I missed houses built from bricks, and when summer changed into fall, most surprisingly, rain.

My mouth waters at the thought of the food we had at my party—the trays of lasagna, hayacas, towers and towers of pastelitos and ham and cheese croquettes, fried sweet plantain with melted cheese, crackling pork belly over salty beans and yellow rice. “We’re

It seemed safer to stay cocooned in the invisibility that came with being underground, that came with being unreachable.

it looked to me that being in each other’s company only seemed to exhaust one and enrage the other

I knew nothing about him but he still felt lonely to me, like maybe he didn’t talk much because nobody ever asked him to

The action seemed sad. Everything he did seemed sad, all of his movements, all of his gestures. Even the way the corner of his lips drooped, pulling down his already-long face, cloaked his features in a melancholy I couldn’t pinpoint

it seemed like he wanted to feel the house shrink in his presence

My mother closed her eyes the way she did whenever she regretted reconnecting with her parents

Quiet and distant, my grandfather was a challenge — and so naturally attracted the meddlesome interest of the flock.

Maybe if I say it casually, like I expect her to be calm and not respond with homicidal rage. No, it won’t work. That nonchalance is too Canadian. Too much like the kids I go to school with. Too white

I stood in the archway between the foyer and living room, watching the two of them in their parallel universes connected by malicious pride. I wondered about the effort this took. I wanted to know what happened at night.

I didn’t know how I would even work a job I wasn’t supposed to have. I just liked the idea of money. My money. Of having something I could control.

Kara heads for the door and feels Eloise’s eyes watching her, searching her body for an imperfection to catch and correct

I don’t know where this sense of pressure is coming from, why I feel the weight of my mother’s gaze on my shoulders, but it makes me awkward as I speak to her.

We strong. There’s no need fi talk.

the loneliness that empty table made me feel was new and unexpected in a way that made it hard to breathe.

To stay in the group, thick skin was a must — being able to take an insult was respected just as much as being able to throw shade.

I wished for a panic attack. Hyperventilation. Tears. Anything to show the weight of what I’d done. But my body didn’t allow me any messy relief; I sat on the train dry-eyed and numbed.

she knew how to inflate her presence, make herself bigger with the noise she created, the shouts she bellowed.

I knew what the right answer was. I knew what she wanted me to say and how she wanted me to say it — but I wasn’t able to say anything else, to show her that I knew what she expected of me

I just wanted something to do with my hands, to hide my awkwardness with the simple motion of putting a cup to my lips

I didn’t like being predictable; it felt too much like a weakness.

His easy confidence wasn’t for show and it burned me. I didn’t know how to be that relaxed; it came across as arrogant. But still, it had to be nice.

I forced myself to swallow the bitter humiliation of being so predictable in my need for quiet.

she doesn’t know when to stop saying things, when she steamrolls over unspoken boundaries and the chattiness turns to shouting.

I didn't like being predictable; it felt too much like a weakness.

Jerry turns right and jostles through a crowd onto Casco Viejo, where the smell of fried plantains and sweet coconut lingers on the warm night air. He heads us down a narrow street of elegant colonial buildings tucked inside the centuries-old city walls. Everywhere, we pass bars and brothels open to restless newcomers seeking another raucous night.

What I wouldn't give for a jibarito joint in Shady Palms," I said, ladling heaps of arroz con gandules on my plate. The rice and beans looked so simple, but one bite was like tasting the rice of the gods. Xander groaned. "Oh man, jibaritos. I still haven't mastered making them at home. You'd think it wouldn't be too hard since I can make tostones, but somehow smashing and double-deep-frying plantain discs is different than doing that to a whole plantain to make a sandwich." Jibaritos were a Puerto Rican specialty, consisting of steak or pork, lettuce, tomato, onions, and garlic sauce sandwiched between smashed, fried plantains. They were both simple and utterly decadent, and when a craving hit, nothing else would do.

Alice and I have photographed and eaten jerk chicken over plantains, spicy and sweet; cups of icy, sweet, rich halo-halo piled with red beans and fruit cocktail; lobster roll sliders stuffed full of delicate shellfish on buttery brioche; pani puri, the fried Indian hollow rounds of dough loaded up with mashed potato and chickpeas and sweet, tangy tamarind chutney. My camera was happy. I was happy.

I headed toward the exit, but he shifted his weight so that he was in front of the door. “I want to leave.” I hoped my voice sounded forceful enough. “Why?” His tone was light, like he and I were playing a game. A sick, nerve-wracking game.

All you do is talk, you know? Just chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, pick pick, pick, pick, pick. I can't wait to die to get away from your wretched mouth.

She ordered iced tea, a smoked chicken leg with rice and beans, and fried plantains on the side. The old Latino guy behind the counter scanned her face, then asked her one of her least favorite questions. “Where you from, chica?” She hadn’t heard this particular question in a while, but she’d heard it enough in her life. That and “What are you?” or, the less rude but just as condescending “Aren’t you pretty?

He was waiting for her on the stoop, also with a six-pack, a small speaker by his side pumping out an old Spinners tune. She felt happy when she saw him in a way that was new to her. He was soothing. Like sweet fried plantains. They smiled at each other in silence as she walked up the brownstone steps to the top of the stoop, sat down, rested her back against the banister, and swung her feet up onto Matteo’s lap. He unbuckled her sandals while she opened a bottle of beer, giving each foot a squeeze as he did so. “This is a good song,” she said. “Ah, the best. But you know what?” “What?” “It sounds better on vinyl.” “Well, shit,” she said, “tell me what doesn’t?” “Fair point.