Edition #160: What I'm Eating In a Costa Rica Beach Town
A beautiful hunk of tuna, papaya smothered in peanut butter, and lots of dessert.
A Note From the Editor
I recently had the pleasure of sorting through every single credit and debit card transaction I’ve made in the past year in preparation for tax season—freelance life glamour, baby! As I classified my transactions during the final three months of 2023, when I was trying out LA, I noticed a pattern emerge: Whole Foods, Whole Foods, Santa Barbara Channel, Whole Foods, Erewhon, Steve’s Berries, Whole Foods, Whole Foods, Whole Foods. It was funny at first, for I knew I’d been grocery shopping excessively while living in Venice Beach—I joked to my New York friends that my favorite LA hobby was grocery shopping. I didn’t have a car or a ton of friends and I could easily skate to the grocery stores I liked, plus there were so many farmers markets to try. Still, the trips were out of hand; almost daily and rarely under $30.
This made me think about eating, one of my favorite pastimes, and the way our physical location affects how and what we eat. When I’m traveling someplace new, one of the first things I like to do is get to know the local grocery scene. I’m taken by the variety or the lack thereof; a big chain store, a street vendor selling fruit, an unpolished farmers market. I love observing people and looking in their grocery carts, walking down the snack aisle and perusing the produce, drinking in the true seasonality that doesn’t exist quite the same way in America. You can learn a lot about a place by spending time at the grocery store.
Maybe because I’m about to get my period or maybe because I’m finally clicked back into the local lifestyle here, but I’ve been deriving a deep sense of satisfaction from feeding myself lately. What and how I’ve been eating is directly correlated to the physical place—a small, somewhat rugged surf town in Costa Rica.
The Grocery Shopping Situation
There are several grocery stores in this town, each with a different vibe and varied clientele.
The everyman grocery store | My favorite. They’ve got everything you could ask for: a pharmacy, reasonably priced groceries, wine, cleaning supplies, sunscreen, even yellow sticky notes. I do most of my shopping here, save for produce. Costa Rica has crazy high, near-toxic pesticide levels in their produce, so I try to go organic there.
The fancy health food store | A small store with a lovely vibe and, you guessed it, organic produce. It’s quite expensive, so I generally stick to produce and a few other treats including an insane peanut butter that tastes like the inside of a Reeses, the most delicious local butter I’ve ever tasted, and frozen pitaya. I also buy pre-made gallo pinto here because it’s a Costa Rican staple but I’m too lazy to make it myself. They have a whole back wall with locally made, refillable skincare and haircare products.
My friend looked at the jar and said “That’s dessert.” The grocery store with good rotisserie chicken | I come here periodically just to buy a chicken, and then I eat chicken for three days straight.
The local fish guy | One of the major perks of coming back to the same place is making local friends—who introduce you to their local fish guy. When I want to buy (insanely fresh and affordable) fish, I text this guy my order by 11 am. The fish is caught that morning, cleaned and divided in the afternoon. Around 4 pm, I meet up with the fisherman’s delivery man in a decided spot in town, pay cash, and get a gorgeous filet. Qué magical!
To Start the Day
I briefly dated a guy in LA and was *very* LA. The morning after I first slept over his place, I was greeted with a barrage of beverages: triple osmosis filtered water with trace minerals, fresh beet juice, coffee, and two Brazil nuts on the side. “For selenium,” he said.
Later, a dear health coach friend in New York told me she, too, consumes two Brazil nuts a day, “For selenium.” I never Googled what selenium is and why I needed it, but I did begin a daily ritual of eating two Brazil nuts each morning. They’re my pretend vitamins and they’re quite meaty.
Each morning I chug a full bottle of water and eat two Brazil nuts. If go for a morning surf I have my coffee afterward, otherwise, I have it after my water/nut vitamins.
Breakfast? Lunch? Brunch?
My body says it’s time to eat anywhere from 9 am on the days I don’t surf to 11 am on the days I do. I alternate between breakfasts depending on what I’m craving, but the usual suspects here have been:
Chia-ish pudding with mango | I made this by accident and turns out I love it. Pour a bunch of chia seeds into a bowl, add a few spoonfuls of coconut probiotic yogurt, mix mix mix. Add some diced mango (usually half a giant mango will do) and sprinkle some hemp seeds on top. It’s delicious, not too sweet, and decently filling.
Breakfast tacos | I can’t stop making these. Two soft scrambled eggs (beat the eggs in a bowl beforehand, add water to keep them light, cook quickly and on low heat to keep them moist) on two grilled corn tortillas. I add avocado and pico de gallo and sometimes Lizano sauce, a typical Costa Rican condiment that tastes A1’s less tangy cousin.
Breakfast tacos when I run out of tortillas. Pretty pitaya bowl | I’ve been too lazy to make this lately, but it’s delicious. I blend frozen pitaya, a banana, coconut yogurt, water, and ice. Keep it thick! Then I layer hemp and chia seeds, chopped cashews and almonds, and the frozen pitaya mixture in a bowl, throw some chopped mango or papaya on top and sprinkle coconut shreds. Delicious and pretty!
Depending on what time I eat dictates what I have for lunch—I’ve always found lunch at home to be the impossible meal. Maybe it’s a salad, maybe it’s leftovers, maybe it’s papaya smothered in the fancy dessert peanut butter. Who knows! The body wants what she wants.
Desserts: In Town vs. On the Beach
One of the strongest collective lies in our society is the *I’m not a sweets person* person. Have you ever met a child who wasn’t a sweets person? No, because children only know joy and truth and don’t comprehend our strange adult afflictions, like doing taxes and pretending we don’t like dessert.
I, for one, love dessert. I love it even more when I’m in this town, for I’ve gotten to know the local dessert scene a little too intimately. There are two types of desserts around here:
Desserts in town | By that I mean desserts you can get at cafes, restaurants, etc.
Pistachio bombolones. An Italian cafe in town has these fluffy, donut-like treats filled with cream, Nutella, raspberry, etc. My favorite is one filled with light, airy pistachio cream. Somehow it doesn’t hurt my stomach and it tastes like happiness.
Ten times for fluffy than it looks. Homemade chocolate peanut butter cup. My favorite dessert spot in town is a formerly vegan restaurant. I never eat there, I just go straight to the dessert counter and order my treat to go. They source from a few different pastry chefs around town, so the variety is splendid. My first choice is always the homemade chocolate peanut butter cup with an Oreo-like crust at the bottom.
Banoffee pie in a jar. Always my second choice. I’d never tried or heard of banoffee pie before; it is superb. Bonus points for being served in a wide-mouthed jar I can take home to store my vita-nuts in.
Desserts at the beach | Something very, very special happens here: people walk around the beach selling homemade desserts, usually straight out of a pan and sometimes a specialty from their country. I’ve only recently begun to resist my impulse to automatically say no anytime someone is trying to sell me something—for these treats, I’ll change. Plus, I respect the hustle of stomping around a hot beach all day slinging banana bread and such. I tried two new beach desserts this week:
Alfajores. Usually so delicious, but I accidentally bought a raw vegan one. Instead of two delicious, melt-in-your-mouth cookies with a layer of dulce de leche in between, I got a crusty, energy-ball-tasting hunk of oats. My fault for not speaking better Spanish!
Chocotorta. I can’t believe I’ve gone 31 years without this dessert in my life. Layers of soaked chocolate cookie and dulce de leche mixed with cream cheese). Sounds just ok, tastes unreal. Sweet, balanced, rich but not too rich. Something about the way this dessert sets in the fridge for hours makes the flavors meld together in a way I am going to be thinking about for months.
Dinners At Home
I love a wind-down at the end of the day, and cooking dinner checks this box. I turn on some music, make a mess, dance around a little, clean everything up before sitting down to eat. I tend to eat the same few things on repeat, but lately, I have discovered a spark of creativity in the kitchen at dinnertime. Let’s see how long it lasts.
Yellow curry | So easy! Drain and cube some tofu and cook it in a pan until it gets a little color. Next, add chopped veg of your choice—I use carrots, bell peppers, white onion and spinach (hold the spinach until the end so it doesn’t wilt). Cook a bit until the veg isn’t rock hard, then add a can of coconut milk and a jar of yellow curry paste, or any curry paste, simmer on low until the veg is properly cooked but not mushy—toss in your spinach at the end. I serve this jasmine rice; so warm and comforting.
Soba noodle bowl | Cook some soba noodles, set aside. Crumble up some tofu (can also use shrimp or whatever you want) and cook with soy sauce, sesame oil, and diced ginger. Add carrots and the white part of the green onion, cook some more. Put protein/veg on top of soba noodles, more soy sauce, maybe some garlic, and diced green onions. Yum.
Fish + carb + salad | Always a go-to. If it’s salmon, it’s pan fried with soy sauce and sesame oil, served with jasmine rice, avocado, and green onion all mixed into a big bowl. If it’s Mahi, which is local here, it’s pan fried in olive oil seasoned with adobo, garlic, and salt. If it’s tuna, also local here, it’s seared with whatever I’m in the mood for, flavor-wise. Carbs are either jasmine rice, gallo pinto, or fried plantains. My go-to salad is lettuce, tomato, green onion, avocado, carrots, radishes, hemp seeds, olive oil and red wine vinegar. A little salt and pepper always.
My big, beautiful $7 tuna. God bless.
Dinners Not At Home
All that cooking at home means I sincerely appreciate going out to eat. I cherish being passively fed; no cleanup, no brainpower. I hope I end up with someone who likes to cook and is good at it.
My favorite sushi spot | They have an appetizer I dream about called chicken bao; a little piece of boneless fried chicken in a little bao bun with some sort of mayo and picked carrots. I always order this and some sushi, ideally the tuna-centric rolls because they are so fresh. I heard this place puts MSG in everything and that is why it’s so good. I’m here for it.
My friend’s plant-based dinner club | Every month, my friend Maddi hosts a local dinner club. Three courses, usually some sort of theme, BYOB, a sweet vibe. This week she’s serving her arancini as an appetizer, which I could eat 100 of.
Something Fun: Costa Rica *Composting*
Composting in New York is a difficult to impossible chore. Composting in LA is more accessible, but only if you pay the city for a composing bin and pickup service. In Costa Rica, you toss your fruit and veggie stuff straight into the jungle. The lack of composting red tape is perfectly emblematic of life here vs. life in the States. I love seeing all the little jungle creatures that scuttle around the perimeter of my yard snacking on my discarded papaya seeds and carrot peels.
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Cheers, my dears, and as always thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this voyeuristic look into my dietary habits in Costa Rica. Excited to see how these will evolve in Mexico and South Africa. Here’s a free idea for my social-media savvy pals: an account that is all pictures (or videos?) of what’s in people’s shopping carts, à la these old gems.
Have a beautiful weekend. I’ll be nursing lots of little injuries from surfing straight into some reef, plus trying more beach desserts, going to dinner with some friends, and reading a book I can’t put down. Buy yourself a little treat this weekend! Cook an elaborate meal! Make popcorn and watch a movie on the couch!
Three Pieces of Content Worth Consuming
Is It Ever Too Early For Couples Therapy? A friend of mine once said in a hushed tone that he thought couple’s therapy (for the unmarried millennial relationship set) was just “an expensive way to break up.” I laughed and thought it clever, for most of my unmarried friends or dates who tried couple’s therapy only discussed the experience on the back end of a relationship, and usually in the manner of, “We even tried couple’s therapy.” This piece makes a strong case for couples therapy as a tool for strengthening a relationship at any stage versus a last-ditch effort.
When Meal Planning Gets Tedious, Treat Cooking Like a Game. How fitting! I appreciate this approach, especially the first suggestion of trying grocery-lite months. As a perpetual over-shopper, it’s fun to sometimes force myself to get creative with whatever ingredients I have on hand versus going out and buying more, more, more. These tactics would be ever more fun to try with someone else!
What Good Friends Look Like. If you read one link in today’s newsletter, make it this. A valuable, clear tool for understanding and evaluating the quality of your friendships. I’d never heard of Tim Urban’s “Does This Friendship Make Sense” Matrix before, but I found it supremely useful. Happy to report I have a solid, mixed origin crew of Q1 friends. Learning about Q3 friends—especially those “friendships” where lust or unrequited love are involved—closed an understanding gap I didn’t know I had.
Perhaps You Should…Go Glamping in the Jungle
Airbnb definitely has their desktop geo-tracking all the way turned up. I was looking for Airbnb’s in South Africa, but my home page was all super cool homes around Costa Rica. This one caught my eye. How cool would it be to wake up here?
**Bonus Content** (The Sweetest Story)
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Things like this have happened to me a few times in life, and each time they do I feel so lucky to be alive. So sweet, guaranteed to make you feel good.
A Quote From A Book You Should Read:
“She bought packages of cookies from Pepperidge Farm and three pints of Ben and Jerry’s politically virtuous ice cream and a Duncan Hines boxed mix for a yellow cake and a Duncan Hines tub of chocolate frosting with a red plastic lid, because parenthood had taught her that on vacation’s inevitable rainy day you could while away an hour by baking a boxed cake. She bought two tumescent zucchini, a bag of snap peas, and a bouquet of curling kale so green it was almost black. She bought a bottle of olive oil and a box of Entenmann's crumb-topped donuts, a bunch of bananas and a bag of white nectarines and two plastic packages of strawberries, a dozen brown eggs, a plastic box of pre-washed spinach, a plastic container of olives, some heirloom tomatoes wrapped in crinkling cellophane, marbled green and shocking orange. She bought three pounds of ground beef and two packages of hamburger buns, their bottoms dusty with flour, and a jar of locally made pickles. She bought four avocados and three limes and a sandy bundle of cilantro, though Archie refused it eat cilantro.”
-Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam