The Bitten Word

4 Days in Tulum: Chasing Away the Winter on the Beach in Mexico

Hello, Bittens!

Are you cold? We sure are. Over the past several weeks, we've had an extreme cold snap here in Washington, D.C., along with much of the rest of the country. 

Which made it all the more wonderful when, a couple weeks ago, we snuck down to Tulum, Mexico, for a four-day weekend. 

Tulum is amazing. It's a beach town on the Atlantic coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, about 50 miles south of Cancun. Until about 10 years ago, Tulum was a sleepy stretch of thatched-roof huts and a couple of food stands on a spit of land between the ocean and the jungle.

But in recent years, Tulum has grown up. There are now several boutique hotels and pricey little shops. And there's a burgeoning restaurant and bar scene.

Despite the growth, it still maintains the feel of a tiny beach town. The hotels and shops and restaurants all blend in to the surroundings. There's exactly one road, a narrow lane that parallels the ocean, with no side roads. So everything in Tulum is either on the beach side of the road (in which case it's likely a terrace with the most perfect view of the sparkling ocean you've ever seen) or on the jungle side (in which case it's likely this impossibly romantic restaurant with a thousand candles hanging among the palms). The whole place was beachy, breezy, casual and beautiful.

We stayed in a tiny hut we found on Airbnb. We mean tiny. And hut. It had a high thatched roof, a concrete floor, a bed and a bathroom area in the corner. There was one naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, and one electrical outlet.

But our hut was right on the beach -- maybe 50 feet from the surf, with nothing between us and the water. The crashing waves lulled us to sleep every night. (The photo at the top of this post is the view from our hut.)

An aerial shot of out hut (and several others). This photo from Jana/Airbnb. 

Anyway, we wanted to share with you some images from our trip -- the foods we ate, and some of the sites we saw.

So without further ado ... ¡vamonos!

 

Silky Chocolate Pudding

Fine Cooking (February/March 2015)

Months and months ago, while on a trip to New York City, we dropped into Buvette for dinner.

The meal itself, enjoyed at a cramped but cozy little table, was lovely. But we were especially enamored with dessert: Buvette's decadent chocolate mousse.

It's the kind of dessert we dream about: rich and dark, piled high into a serving dish, with two spoons ready to do some serious damage. We've since made Buvette's chocolate mousse at home, although we've neglected to photograph it so we haven't yet shared it here. 

That mousse came to mind while reading the latest Fine Cooking. The current issue features this pudding in its "Repertoire" column, which every month introduces a basic template recipe that's good to have in one's back pocket. This isn't the rich, dreamy mousse from Buvette, but rather a more straightforward chocolate dessert that's closer to pudding you might remember from childhood.

Well, our back pockets are never quite full enough (along with our bellies), so we jumped into our first homemade chocolate pudding attempt. 

Moroccan Lamb Stew with Mint Tea and Apricots

Fine Cooking (February/March 2015)

Thank you so much to all of you who have left comments or sent emails about our 7th Blogiversary post. You guys are the absolute best!  We've had the most amazing time reading through all your sweet thoughts about The Bitten Word. 

One thing that especially struck us was how many people commented on our musings about how one day we'll probably stop writing this blog. Don't worry: we're not going anywhere.

And how could we, when we've got dishes like this Moroccan Lamb Stew that we need to talk about with you?

Our Blogiversary: 7 Stories We've Never Told You

Reflections on 7 Years of The Bitten Word

 

 

A few days ago marked our Blogiversary: 7 full years of writing here at The Bitten Word, and the beginning of our 8th year of blogging our way through food magazines. 

In honor of the occasion, we thought we'd tell you 7 stories we've never shared here before. These are stories that we tell friends who ask questions about the blog, or stories we've shared at dinner parties when people ask about wacky things that have happened because of The Bitten Word. 

Here's a little peak behind the blogging curtain....

1. "Dear Bitten Word, The"

Thanks to blogging, we've ended up on a lot of public relations email lists. And that means we get offered a lot of stuff. Like a lot of stuff. Conservatively, we get at least 10 emails a day pitching us on some product or service or app. Though we rarely respond to these PR emails, we do actually read them (well, most of the time).

Most are easy enough to ignore: invites to events in cities where we don't live; pitches for products that we ourselves would never use; press releases (so many press releases!) about restaurant openings all over the world (if you haven't noticed, we don't really write about restaurants); and emails that begin with a very poorly executed mail merge (our favorite opening line: "Dear Bitten Word, The").   

Sometimes, if we're intrigued by a pitch, we'll write back, or ask for more information. Over the years we've let people send us samples of books, cookware and some food items.

Which brings us to the heart of our story: the strangest offer we've ever received.

A few years ago, a PR company reached out to offer us a car.

That's right, a car.

And not just any car, a huge SUV. The pitch was that they would give us a car for a week, and we would drive it around and then write about it.

We passed, mostly because parking it in our neighborhood sounded like a nightmare. But still: a car. 

2. "It makes us sad" 

Here's one of the more cringeworthy moments of our blogging experience. 

Once, we were able to meet some folks who worked in a test kitchen for one of the magazines we cover. It was all perfectly nice and we were very interested in every little detail of what they had to say.

But then one of the test-kitchen guys mentioned a recent post we'd written, in which we'd said some negative things about a recipe from this particular magazine. "When you don't like one of our recipes," this guy said, "it makes us sad."

#Awkward.

 

Garlic-Herb Spaghetti Squash

Food Network Magazine (February 2015)

Are you eating a lot of spaghetti squash?

No, we mean, like, right now. Are you eating spaghetti squash right this minute?

Because you could be. It's that easy to make.

This recipe from Food Network Magazine shows just how quick and simple it is to prepare a spaghetti squash side dish.

But this recipe, in our opinion, could also use a little tweaking.

Kung Pao Brussels Sprouts

Bon Appétit (February 2015)

Have you ever asked a restaurant for a recipe?

Though we've asked dozens of home cooks who have hosted us for dinner to share their recipes, we've never done so in a restaurant. (Instead, we just ask the servers enough creepy ingredient questions so we can try to recreate it on our own when we get home...)

Bon Appétit has a long-running feature -- "r.s.v.p." -- at the front of each issue in which the magazine helps readers find recipes for dishes they've eaten in restaurants and loved. We're glad they've kept the feature as the magazine has been overhauled over the past few years. Though we rarely cook from the "r.s.v.p." column, we love reading the questions.

(And although we're always skeptical of the veracity of reader-submitted questions in magazines -- we're looking at you, Parade and Food Network Magazine -- we think the questions in "r.s.v.p." are legit, or at least legit enough for us.)  

In the newest Bon Appétit, a question appears asking for a recipe for Kung Pao Brussels Sprouts.  

They had us at Kung Pao....