Books

I was chatting to some friends about various books I've read in the past, many of which came from my high school days. There were many that I loved, and read and re-read. I'm just going to plunge in and start with the ones I disliked.

Catcher in the Rye. Absolutely hated that piece of trash. It's a couple of hours that I'll never get back of my life. Every time someone talks about how it's such an amazing book, and how it changed their life, etc., I automatically lose respect for that person. It's akin to being a rabid fan of Ayn Rand, who I also cannot stand. Her books are entertaining, but her ideals are vomit inducing.

Then there was Great Gatsby. I could not STAND that load of tripe. It was as boring and vapid as a Jane Austen novel, and that's saying something. Nathaniel Hawthrone was fun, but that's mainly because our English teacher at the time was enchanted with him and would tell us the stories rather than reading through them. Else, I don't think that I could have dealt with more of his verbose chatter. Seriously, people. WHY is it necessary to ramble on about the details of the bloody door on Hester's house? I don't care enough to devote two whole pages to it. Move along.

My problem with Jane Austen, as is my problem with a lot of writers of the Romantic era, is that the characters are pretty annoying. I don't empathise with them, because I dislike them so much. Was it Flaubert that wrote Madam Bovary? I think so. Couldn't stand her either. Didn't like Pride and Prejudice either for the same reason. Also, my problem with Jane Austen is that the whole book drags along until the last 20 or 30 pages or so, and then everything happens all at once.

As a side note, I did enjoy the adaptation of P&P, called Bridget Jones's Diary. Both the book and film were good fun.

I did tremendously like Handmaid's Tale, by Atwood. I read it in high school for an English class, and was so engrossed in it that I couldn't actually keep myself from reading ahead. The teacher would assign a certain amount of chapters, and I'd be well past that point, and having to hold back not to spoil the rest of the book for the others. Oryx and Crake was another one by Atwood that I read on my own much later on, and enjoyed equally well. My only one issue with Atwood's books is that she starts them off in such a way that it takes a good four or five chapters to be drawn into the story. But if you're patient, you're well rewarded.

Then there were the dystopian books, like 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. Those were seriously good reads, if for no other reason than the fact that at the time I was reading them, there was a huge push in TV and other places that we're wrecking the planet, and should we go on like we are, we will end up with nothing at all and all the animals and plants will be gone. Fahrenheit 451 especially resonated strongly with me, because it was about books, which are a life-long passion for me.

In 10th grade, I had a teacher who would offer us extra credit if we read a book from the bookshelf behind her desk, and discussed it with her when we finished. She introduced me to Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, and Ken Follet, who I instantly fell in love with. I devoured Pillars of the Earth (Follet), Kane and Abel, As the Crow Flies (Archer), and all of Sidney Sheldon's books that she had. It was at the point where I'd get through a book in one day, and discuss it with her the next day. She'd be surprised, because I managed to read it in one day, and still keep up with my other classes.

I can't even count the amount of Mercedes Lackey I've read. And read again and again. At one point, I had all of her Velgarth series in hard cover (the ones that were offered in hard cover), along with the companion (if you've read the books, you'll get the pun) books to go with it.

Let's not forget Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo is still one of my favourites. I liked Three Musketeers, but not as much as Monte Cristo. Can't explain why. I guess it's because I read Count of Monte Cristo first.

Anne of Green Gables. Over the years, I've read and re-read that series many times over, and loved them dearly. To watch Anne go from an awkward, and fairly brash young girl into an elegant lady was tremendously enjoyable. "Why, you're better than a whole room full of boys, Anne." Oh, Matthew!

I never got into Shakespeare. Our teachers mostly had us read them, and the language was a hurdle. No, I'm not being fair. I liked MacBeth. I also like Othello. The Iago character was pretty awesome, although Othello himself seemed like a bit of an airhead. You know what the real problem is? They start you in high school with Romeo and Juliet. I think that's a mistake. Then, they move you onto Julius Caesar. And moreover, the teacher doesn't always have the class read it aloud. You read it at home, and are struggling to figure out what the heck is going on, and once you do, you want to roll your eyes at the story line. Why not start off with Merchant of Venice, and then move onto Midsummer Night's Dream or MacBeth or Hamlet? All three of those are pretty decent reads. Instead, they start you with the weepy romance (R&J) and move onto a fairly dense tragedy (Caesar), and by the time you get to MacBeth, which is actually a pretty decent read, you've lost interest.

My middle school teacher let us read MacBeth in class. That was a cool class for sure. She was a huge fan of the book, and took time to explain the stories surrounding the plot, and how the story fits into itself.

Then I got into college, and had an English teacher who rocked my world with Terry Pratchett. I haven't been able to feed my addiction to his books. I started with Equal Rites, and ran to the library to get more. They're like mental candy, but have plenty of satire and substance as well. Ordinarily, I don't care for satire, because it often tends to be heavy handed (Modest Proposal, anyone?) rather than subtle (Gulliver's Travels).

I haven't even nicked the surface of the ones I've enjoyed (or the ones I didn't), but I'm hungry, and I've said what was on my mind for now. Do you agree?

Oh. Tolkien. Can't stand him. Long, boring, rambling. I can put up with it in Dickens, because his novels started as serials, which got combined into a novel. What's Tolkien's excuse? Couldn't stay awake through the films either.

Oh. And Harry Potter. LOVE all the books, have read them multiple times, own all the films on DVD.

Aloo mattar (potatoes & peas)

Welcome to another episode of "ask Dino, because this darn recipe makes no sense".

I have a vague memory of Aloo Matar, from long in my past that was awesome, and I had it at a restaurant somewhere. I've made a few versions at home but they have fallen a little flat (not so flat that I wasn't willing to eat them, but you get the idea).

Recipe: 8 potatoes sliced
1/2 cup veg oil
Small onion, chopped
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tomatoes, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 lb peas
(made a half recipe each time)
Basically it called for sweating the onions, frying the potatoes for 10 min, adding everything else and cooking another 10-15 min. Very easy. I gave it a try, but as above a little bland. I also coarsely cubed the taters, never just sliced them.
My recipe called for tossing in cumin seeds halfway through the cooking, so I tried to Dino-ize it a little and pop them at the beginning. They never popped, but they sizzled and smelled good. No heat in the original, so I chopped a serano pepper and added it with the tomatoes and peas. Better, but still seemed to be missing a little.

Questions: 1) Should my cumin seeds pop or do they just sizzle?
2) What other spices and when to add them?
3) What sort of potatoes would you recommend (bakers?, gold?).

Thanks!

You can cut back on that fat big time, because it's not necessary in the beginning like that. Start with a tablespoon or two, and work forward from there. You can always add more fat, but removing it is not so easy. Also, when you start with a small amount of fat, the pot and the fat get hot extremely quickly, and maintain that heat, so that the spices will pop properly.

Start with a pot that's larger than you think you'll need. Add just enough oil to coat the bottom of it. Let the oil get so hot that it smokes a little. Add in your cumin seeds, and boost the flavour with a bit of coriander seeds for good measure. Let them pop. They MUST pop for the flavour to be worth anything. When the seeds have stopped popping, pitch in the onions. Cook it over very high heat, and let those suckers get softened, then browned around the edges. You don't have the fully get them caramelised, but it won't hurt anything if you let them go to full brown.

All these steps take a tiny bit of extra effort, but they're worth it in the end.

Then, you add your cubed potatoes. If you just slice them, they don't tend to cook so evenly, and they're harder to stir around in your pot. You also tend to miscalculate the amount of fat you need, because the sliced potatoes tend to stack up, and not allow a crust to form.

Here's the trick to getting them to taste like the restaurant. Boil the potatoes first, let them get cold, THEN cube them up. It'll make the potatoes fry off so much more nicely.

As you continue to fry the potatoes in the fat and spices, you'll notice that they take up the fat nicely. THIS is the point at which you can add extra fat, about a teaspoon or so at a time, should the potatoes start sticking to your pot. If you're working with nonstick cookware, you really won't have to worry about this so much.

The next point is a matter of personal taste. Being from the south, I tend to throw in 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, but this is strictly your own call. I like the colour and taste, but not everyone does.

After about five minutes of cooking over furiously high heat, turn down the heat to medium-low, and cover the lid of the pot, so that they can roast slowly.

SHORTCUT: If you are comfortable with it, lay the potoatoes out onto a baking sheet, and throw them under the broiler of your oven for 2 minutes at a time, until they get brown and crusty and lovely. Then, when the potatoes are brown, toss through the peas, and let it sit under the broiler for another minute or two, to heat the peas up through and through. This method also prevents you from mashing the potatoes as you stir them through. Even my mother, who's been doing this for the better part of 40 years tends to end up with half the potatoes mashed.

At the end, adjust your seasoning with salt, chili, or any other such flavouring you like.

If you do the boiling step, you can use any potato you like, because they tend to all get that lovely texture like the classic dish does. If you don't, just use any good waxy potato, like a yukon gold, or red bliss, or new potato. If you want to add some more north-indian-y spices, like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, or cardamom, do so in the last five minutes of cooking, so that they stay strong. Just add a few hefty pinches of cinnamon, a pinch or two of clove, a scrape of nutmeg, and a pinch of cardamom powder, and you'll be golden.

If your cumin doesn't want to pop in the fat, or you've forgotten to do so and are adding it halfway through, just dry toast the cumin in a separate skillet, and toss it in. Without properly cooking the cumin, the flavour will fall flat.

Hope this helps a bit!

Tumeric and coriander, excellent. I don't mind if they get a little mashed up. I probably should cube the potatoes a little smaller and I'll have to try the pre-cooking method.

Would you recommend a chili powder or fresh green chilis or what? Thanks again for your time!

Well. There's a couple of routes to go with /that/ as well. Depending on how much you want to control the heat, and what kind of chili powder/fresh chili you're talking, it can change things. The chiles used in India are the Thai Bird chiles. It'll give you the most authentic flavour, and will be sufficiently hot to peel off the roofing tiles if you add enough of them. If you remove some of the seeds, you can scale back on the heat. If you fry the seeds with the onions, you can seriously make the heat a hell load more sneaky.

Here's how it works. You pop your cumin seeds, bla bla bla. Everything is screaming hot in that pot, and it's smelling fantastic. You add in a very big handful of chopped up finely Thai Bird chiles once the spices stop popping, instead of the onion. THEN you add the onion, and let the whole mess get softened, bla bla bla. The heat will dissipate into the fat, and sneak up on you much more slowly.

The chili powder can be ground red chili, cayenne pepper, or hot paprika, depending on your level of heat needs. Add it at the very end in the last minute of cooking, or else your kitchen will fill with lung-searing, painful smoke that you will be coughing up for the next hour.

Personally, when I make something hot, I like to go for a one-two punch. Start with the chiles in fat, and then finish with the powder. That way, when you're eating, you get the immediate jolt of hot hot fire. Then, as you chew and savour the flavour, the sneaky heat that's hiding in the fat comes skulking out and gives you another tingly stabby heat. It's lovely.

Thanks for the answer (and for the question)! Could you substitute plantains for the potatoes? I know it would be non-traditional and all that, but I made the curried plantains out of your book recently and loved them. So I bought more plantains. Thanks!

Yes yes yes yes YES. Yes, definitely. There are a variety of things that you can use in place of potatoes for recipes in the book: plantains (just peel them first), yucca (peel and core first), sweet potatoes, taro (also called ñame in Latin American stores), yautia, or pretty much any other starchy vegetable. In fact, when you're making soup, using yucca would make the flavour superior, because it's got a sort of fragrance about it that works ever so well in soups and stews. Plantains are absolutely a wonderful substitute for potatoes. They work for bajji, curry, soup, stew, or anything else you can dream up.

Oooh, with plaintains! I would assume not completely ripe?

Yes, exactly. Green plantains. I think I put up a youtube video on how to peel them easily.

Link.

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Suffice it to say, it was a bit of back-and-forth, but it was lots of fun to discuss food with people who are into it.

EEEEK!

I was in the plating area, checking for inventory of something or another. I’d asked Boss Man about something and turned around to attend to the espresso machine. I turned back around, and almost ran into Boss Man. In shock, I let out a shriek much like a five year old girl would when she’s confronted with something startling or scary. (And therein, friends, lies the very obvious clue that it isn’t boss man. He doesn’t shriek.)

I know that I dislike using gendered language, but I can’t quite think of another mental image that will match up with that particular exclamation. It’s the sort of thing for which I’d have gotten odd looks or laughter at the least, and teasing or mocking at worst. When it boils down to it, sometimes just being yourself can be risky.

But there’s a couple of things that I took away from that moment. For one thing, I’m comfortable enough with my work environment that such a display didn’t send me (as it would have in the past) red-faced and running to some place where I could be alone for a while. For another thing, nobody even paused, flinched, laughed, or had any reaction at all. That’s an incredibly comforting feeling.

Sometimes, you get lucky, and the people around you know you for who you are, and accept you. Not tolerate you. That would be what I got from people in the past. You’ve seen toleration. It’s rolled eyes. It’s barely concealed contempt. It’s ugly.

I’ve got acceptance.

Aloo Gobi

A dear friend asked if I could describe to her how I would go about making aloo gobi. There are a bunch of different versions, but I like a fairly simple one. Here was my reply:

There's three major methods, but I tend to use one or the other, depending on where I am, and what the intention is. Per head of cauliflower, you want about 3 medium sized potatoes, one medium sized onion, and 3 roma or 1 beefsteak tomato. The spices you want to use are cumin, coriander, and garam masala.

One method is to chop the potato, floret the cauliflower, get onions, ginger, garlic all minced up, and chop up some tomato and cilantro. Then, deep fry the cubed potato till it's tender, and crispy on the outside. Drain. Then, deep fry the cauliflower until it's browned. Pour out the oil from your pot, and leave behind a couple of tablespoons. Pop your spices, sautee your onions, and add in the chopped tomato. Cook them together for about 5 minutes or so. I wouldn't use tinned diced tomato, because it won't break down completely. When you've got your gravy formed, pitch in the fried vegetables, and stew everything together for like 10 - 15 minutes. Add the ginger, garlic, and cilantro, and cook another minute or so. Turn off the heat, slam on the lid, and let it rest for 20 minutes, while you clean up the enormous mess you've made, and put away the 30,000 things you brought out to make this mess. Pull out some flour tortillas, and use the method for making roti, so that you don't make an even more giant mess by making fresh made roti. Because this was a consdierable mess. Pour yourself some wine, sit down with your husband, and eat. For the next day or so, revel in the lovely smells that have permeated your house.

Then, there's the shortcut to all that deep frying. Chop your potatoes only. Toss them in oil, and bake at 350 for 40 minutes. While the potatoes are roasting in the oven, floret your cauliflower, and toss that in a bit of oil too. Spread them out on their own baking sheet, and throw them in the oven when the timer hits 20 minutes. While those two are going, set a large pot on your stove. Leave the stove off. Chop up your onions, and toss them into the pot on the stove. See, this way, you don't dirty up any more dishes than strictly necessary. Trust me, it'll be fine. When all the onions are chopped up, sprinkle some powdered cumin and powdered coriander over the onions. Pour in a couple tablespoons of oil. Turn on the heat to screaming high. The oil will percolate through the onions, and the onion liquid will release quickly, making it so you don't need to add so much fat. While the onions cook, chop up your tomatoes. If you're using diced tomato from the tin, feel free to give them a couple of whizzes with the stick blender to chop them up nicely. Stir the onions every minute or two. When the onions are softened, add the tomato, and cover the lid. Cook covered for about ten minutes, stirring once or twice in between. By now, the timer should be screeching, and your roasted vegetables are ready. Wait until the tomatoes have had a chance to cook down, and become saucy. Add in the roasted vegetables, and stir well. Don't worry terribly if a couple of the potatoes or cauliflower florets break up a bit. It'll still be fine. Cover the lid, and let it stew together. Chop up some garlic, grate some ginger, and mince up some cilantro. When the vegetables have cooked for about 5 minutes in the sauce, open the lid, fling in the garlic/ginger, and add the cilantro. Turn off the heat, and slam on the lid. Wash up the baking sheets, and the cutitng board and knife. By the time you're done cleaning up, the stuff is ready.

The final method is to do everything on the stove, chopping as you go along. You need to be a relatively decent chopper for this to work out to your advantage. Chop some onions. Pop some cumin seeds and coriander seeds in just enough oil to coat the bottom of your pan. Add the diced onion. While the onions cook, cube the potatoes. When the onions are browned, add the potatoes. The reason you brown the onions instead of just letting them get soft is because in the previous two versions, the vegetables got browned. In this method, you're only really browning the onions. While the potatoes cook (over medium heat, please), floret the cauliflower. Chop the tomato, garlic, ginger, and cilantro. The potato cooking will give you plenty of time to chop up the rest of your stuff. The reason you don't add the tomato at the beginning is because you want the potatoes to get roasted a bit. When the potatoes are cooked through to your liking, add the cauliflower, poatotes, garlic, and ginger. Toss everything to combine. Cover with the lid, and let it simmer away for 10 - 20 minutes, depending on how al dente you like your cauliflower, and how big the florets are. If you like your cauliflower very crisp, go for even less than 10 minutes. Point is that you've got some wait time now, so go ahead and clean up behind yourself. There shouldn't be much clean up, beacuse this has become a stirctly one pot dish at this point. Take a peek into the pot about eight minutes in, and give everything a good stir. Let it keep cooking till the cauliflower is to your liking. Serve!

For all three versions, add a good heavy sprinkling of garam masala at the last minute of cooking. For all three versions, you may use 2 - 3 bay leaves and cook it with the onions. If you don't care for cilantro, use parsley or basil. For all three versions, add salt at the end, as the cauliflower will get mushy if you salt at the beginning. Of course, for all three versions, feel free to be generous with some chopped up chilie peppers to give it a kick.

The first method I would use if I'm trying to impress, and I'm doing a bunch of fried food anyway, so I don't have to worry about the deep fat frying being an issue. I've already got a cast iron skillet with hot fat, and I can afford the extra steps. The second method, I'd use at the restaurant, because throwing it into the oven means I don't have to babysit it on the stove. The third method I'd use when it's just me and Puppy, or me and a few friends over for a dinner and a couple of movies on the DVD player. To me, the third method causes the least mess, and I'm in the kitchen cooking other things anyway, so I don't mind that it takes a bit more of my attention.

So Which One's the Girl and Which One's the Boy?

I don't mind this question from young kids. For one thing, they're still young. I remember being that age, and everything in my life had to fit into neat categories. I was chatting to my boss's son about Harry Potter. He hasn't read book 7 yet, so he doesn't know how it all ends. He wanted to know if Severus Snape is good or evil. I tried to get across the concept that not everyone is all good or all evil. Sure, Voldemort is all evil, but that's just one character. Everyone else is a little of each one. I think he understood it at that point. We talked about how in the first book, Snape saves Harry's life. About how he helps Remus Lupin in third one. And how at the point when Snape killed Dumbledore, he didn't have much of a choice. Unbreakable Vow and all that, y'know?

The point I was trying to get across is that nobody is totally good or totally evil. I think the kiddo understood what I was trying to say, because he came up with his own examples of how some of the "good" characters did some fairly dodgy things. That's how you know the other person sees where you're coming from.

But then he had asked, when he first met my husband, which of us is the boy in the couple, and which is the girl. Again, the kid's in grade school. Not offended. It's when grown adults ask that question that I get slightly (not completely) annoyed. Because in reality, what does that even mean?

For a child of 8 or 9 years old, things have to be clearly defined as one or the other, because that's how they figure out their own roles in life. What I explained to the young 'un was that neither of us is the girl because we're both men. We both share the work around the house, and split them up according to which one we're comfortable or good at doing. So while I tend to do the cooking, Steve tends to do the baking. "Oh. OK. Do you want to see me get to the next level on this game?" It didn't phase him in the least, it seems. I'm often pleasantly surprised at how much children can understand when you give them the chance to understand.

Let me put it out there, once and for all. I am a man. I follow what I feel to be my own version of masculinity. Even when I'm having fun with my clothing or grooming or anything else, there is always no denying that I am a man. This goes for Steve as well. Until one gets him started on showtunes or Broadway, you'd sometimes forget that the man is even gay to begin with, but that's another story for another day.

My point is that for most couples, the story of their gendered roles are re-written. This is abundantly true in the Indian community that lives in the USA. The wife may have the baby, but she's usually the one socialising while she leaves her husband to watch the kids during religious or cultural functions. My mother's pointed it out to me on various occasions. The man may be a talented cook, but he still like to kick back with his buddies to watch the game on the TV. I've seen it many many times, while my parents would take us on visits to friends' houses. I'm just throwing out random examples, but you get the point.

Even in traditionally formed heterosexual homes, even when there is a man and a woman, the gendered roles aren't so clearly divided along biological lines. People create for themselves the roles that work for them. Which, at the end of the day, we have done as well. Only, in our case, there is no assumption that one of us will do a certain task or chore based on our sex. When we come to an agreement about who does what, that's because we've figured out that it's how we want it to be done.

And if the question about who the male is and who the female is asks about which one of us does what in bed, that's a really personal question, which is none of anyone else's business.

I saw it on FB

Someone started a group asking whether it'd be nice if they paid you to have fun rather than work.

I don't get it.

I thought that work IS fun.

People often ask what I'd do with unlimited money. I'd travel, surely. I'd make a few investments. I'd probably even get a couple of frivolous things, send some cash to charity, and tie up loose ends here and there. Then?

I'd cook. Then I'd tell people what I'd cooked. Hum. Sound familiar? I'd go on the internet, and research new and interesting ways of making things. Check. I'd continue to tweak my computer and the computers that I come into contact with for maximum performance. I'd keep writing.

Huh.

Guess I'm a pretty wealthy man then, eh? Why? Because (and don't tell my boss) I'm getting PAID to do what I'd be doing if I didn't have to get paid in the first place. Yes, there are challenges. But at the end of the day, what can you think of that's fun or worth doing, that has no challenge in it? Yes, there are mistakes. But I'm human. Mistakes are what help me learn. If you gave me a million billion dollars, I'd spend a bit first. Then I'd go back to doing what I've been doing all along.

Lemon Rice Recipe

OK, so I checked the book, and couldn't find lemon rice in it to save my life! Noooooo! Sorry guys. Here's a guesstimation of the recipe. You may want to adjust it to your own needs. I'm giving it how I make it on a usual basis. There are many different ways to do it, so your mileage may vary.

Yes, it does freeze wonderfully. To thaw it out, take it from the freezer, give it a good sprinkling of water, and nuke it till it's thawed and hot through and through. This works best with long grain rice that is NOT hot. What my mother (and I) do is to cook the rice in the rice cooker, then spread it out onto a surface to cool off. It doesn't need to get cold, but it needs to be cooled down so that you can easily mix it with your hands.

Do not skip that step. If you mix the rice when the rice is piping hot, you'll end up with mashed rice, and that's not pleasant for anyone. The ideal consistency of the rice is a little on the soft side, but still separate. To do this in a rice cooker, add in slightly more water than the amount of rice you're using calls for. It's just a scootch more than usual (maybe a 1/4 cup of total extra water for four cups of rice). It'll get your rice to that slightly chewy consistency, but the rice won't be mushy.

Finally, the best way to mix it all together is with your hands. Any stirring or serving utensil will mush the rice too much. With your hands, you can gently break up large clumps of rice into individual grains. To do this correctly, pick up the large clump of rice, and place it between your two palms. Gently make a rubbing motion, as if you were trying to warm up your hands slowly. Rub back and forth over the surface of the rice clump, and watch the grains magically separate without getting mushy! No fork or spoon would do that.

The substitutions I'm making here are in concession to the fact that most people aren't using the same brand of sesame oil that I'd be able to get in Chennai (Idhayam, for those who are curious). Instead, I use the hulled sesame seeds to approximate the flavour. Hulled sesame seeds are the typical ones you'll find in the store. They have a shiny smooth surface. Unhulled sesame is fine, if that's what you have. They come in black or light brown, and have a coarse outside. If you're using unhulled sesame seeds (light brown) or unhulled black sesame seeds, add them in with the cumin.

Yes, you can use brown rice, but I feel like it's never as separate as white rice. This isn't an every day food. Splurge and have the white rice. Brown rice with mixed spiced rice dishes (coconut rice, tomato rice, lemon rice, tamarind rice, etc.) is pretty nasty, but I'm not going to stop you if you absolutely insist on having it with brown rice.

4 cups of long grain white rice, cooked and cooled on a plate or cookie sheet
2 tablespoons peanut, canola, or corn oil (NOT sesame oil)
1/2 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon hulled sesame seeds
2 stalks curry leaves (optional; do not ask what to substitute. If you don't have them, don't use them, full stop.)
1 handful of peanuts, cashews, or slivered almonds (optional)
1 piece of ginger, about the length of your thumb, grated (NOT peeled)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Juice of 1 lemon + zest
Salt, to taste (I usually end up sprinkling on a generous bit with the cooking rice, but the final dish often has so much flavour that I don't even miss it when I forget to add salt)

Traditional Method:
Cook the rice using your favourite method. I trust my rice cooker, and will default to that.

When the rice is down to room temperature, start making the spice blend.

In a deep pot, heat up the oil. It won't hurt anything if you add a bit of extra fat, because it'll just give the rice a nicer flavour. You want the oil to get very hot, to the point of smoking. Not smoking hard, but when a small wisp of smoke escapes the surface of the fat, you know you're golden.

Add the mustard seeds, and STOP. They will begin to heat up, and pop and crackle like mad. This is very good. If the mustard seeds do not pop, they will taste just awful. Wait for the mustard seeds to pop well before adding anything else, as they take the longest to cook. If you don't hear popping, the oil is not hot enough. Wait until you hear a wild, crazy popping crescendo, and then subside a bit. Then you know the fat is ready for the next step.

Add the cumin seeds, and wait for them to pop as did the mustard seeds.

Here is where the roads will diverge. If you have hulled sesame seeds, wait for the cumin seeds to subside in their popping before adding the sesame seeds, then add the sesame seeds, and allow them to pop. If you do not have hulled sesame seeds, and are using unhulled brown or black sesame seeds, add the sesame seeds at the same time as the cumin. If you have hulled split urad daal, this would be the time to add it. Most people don't have it, so I haven't included it in the list. However, if you do have the stuff, bonus!

While this mad popping is going down, feel free to stir the pot with a wooden spoon, or lift it up from the flame, and swirl it about gently.

This first step takes about a minute in total, once the fat gets hot. It happens extremely fast. If it's not happening quite so fast, your fat is not hot enough. Traditionally, you would add the asafoetida to the mix once the last spice has begun to subside, but in this case, I'm leaving it out, because most people can't even pronounce it, much less stock it in their spice cabinet. Just know that if you have the stuff, now's the time to whip it out.

Once the sesame seeds pop (they really don't need to pop completely, as the cumin and mustard seeds did), add your curry leaves if you have them. If you don't have them, just skip this step. In all honesty, the bulk of the flavour is coming from the lemon and the other spices anyway.

If you have nuts, add them after the curry leaves. Again, this is a purely optional (although deeply delicious) step. Don't fret if you don't have them around, as there have been times when the only thing separating my lemon rice from regular rice is the hint of sourness that I got in there somehow (more on that later).

Once the nuts are toasted (if you added them, otherwise, pretend you're doing this right after the sesame seeds), add the turmeric. Stir it through well, and make sure that the turmeric cooks for about 30 - 45 seconds over the heat. If it doesn't cook well, turmeric has a horrible taste. Finally, add the grated ginger, and turn off the heat. Ginger cooks extremely quickly, and does not require the flame to be on. Slam on the lid, and walk away from the stove. The ginger will cook in the residual heat.

While you wait for the ginger to "cook", zest and juice your lemon. Feel comfortable in knowing that your ginger and spices won't burn, because the stove is off. Life is good.

Open the lid of the spice pot, and pour in the lemon juice and lemon zest. The heat from the pot and spices will give it just enough to bring out the maximum lemon flavour. Stir the spices and juice together. Evenly sprinkle the spice/oil/juice mixture over the cooling rice. Take some rice up into the spice pot, and swirl it around to get out every last bit of that spice blend that you worked so quickly to make. Before tossing everything, give the rice a gentle sprinkling of salt.

Now, with your hands (wear gloves if you've got a recent manicure, as the turmeric will stain) toss the rice gently with the spice blend. You will know that the salt is evenly mixed through when all of the rice is evenly coloured yellow by the turmeric. Neat trick, right?

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Variations There are many times when the situation is less than ideal. I may have forgotten to buy the lemons, or the lemon juice, and I've got all of a teaspoon of the stuff lying around. I can't find my ginger, because I used it in something else in a fit of inspiration. I used up the last of the nuts the night before while sitting on my duff, and watching Golden Girls. Either way, life can sometimes end up in ways you don't want for it to end up.

1) If I'm running extremely low on lemon juice, I sprinkle in a small dab of citric acid (which can be found in bulk in most Indian stores) to amp up the lemony taste. Citrc acid keeps forever, and is good for when I've not got the time to make lemons happen.

2) I was once at my friend Mikeypod's house. We wanted lemon rice, but he didn't have time to cook rice ahead of time. Instead of panicking, I used the pilaf method. After cooking the ginger (on high heat), I added in the rice, and gently tossed it through till it was transluscent. This took the better part of two or three minutes, but it was worth it, as it smelled of gently spiced nuts. Once the rice was tossed through, I added the amount of water that the rice needed, and let the water come to a full rolling boil. I slammed on the lid, and turned down the heat to as low as the stove would go, and let it cook through for about 25 minutes. It was done to perfection.

3) When I run out of ginger, I don't panic at all. That's when I slide in a few cloves of smashed garlic, or a bit of chopped onion. As I come from a Brahmin house, this is strictly Not Done, but seeing as how my family does eat garlic and onion, many of those recipes are done from tradition or not having garlic or onion lying around. These days, however, I find that it's easier to keep garlic or onion in stock than ginger, which tends to turn on me rather quickly.

Off days

Not only was my phone out of batteries all day, I’d also managed to leave the charger at home. Mind you, I did have a secondary wall charger, but I took that one home during the move earlier this week, because I couldn’t find the regular one that I had at home. Then, to top it off, I’d also managed to leave my keys in the office. Hot.

Oh. And my wireless headphones went silent, because I hadn’t charged their batteries in days, but had been using them with my ipod on the way to and from work (40 minutes each way total time from door to door), as well as for about an hour or so before sleeping to get myself to sleep easier. Also, I almost left my hat on the train.

All was not lost, however. I noticed that I left my keys behind when I was still at the train station that takes me back downtown on express (at the 168th street A stop, which goes 168th st, 145th st, 125th st, 59th, 42nd, 34th, 14th, then West 4, which is where I need to exit to get to work. It’s really not that much of a bad trip, especially when I have a book with me to amuse myself.

I also managed to snag the downtown train just as it was pulling into the station, so there was barely any waiting to speak of. Best of all, I found my keys in the office, sitting right where I’d left them, put them back in my bag, and went back to the subway station to catch the train home. Still better is that I have an unlimited pass to ride the subway, so none of these rides cost me anything extra. And of course, best still is that when I do get home, it’ll be nice and warm, I have a fridge that’s reasonably stocked with food, and I’ve got some lovely new spices to put away, because Puppy went to replenish my stocks the other day.

All in all, not a failure of a day.

Pictures of my new apartment.

For the record, the apartment we moved into is a prewar. The ceilings are extremely high, the detail on the walls and floors are fairly nice, and the walls are extremely thick. Some of my friends asked me for pictures of my new digs, so I obliged yesterday, when Puppy and I got cracking on setting the thing up. It was so much work, but it was well worth it, in my opinion.

The other thing about moving that I've noticed is that your entire life is pretty much on front street. All those little things that you thought you'd forgotten about in the recesses of your house come back to haunt you, and all the people helping you to pack have a pretty clear view of your dirty laundry (be it literal or metaphorical). It's a weird experience, because rarely does every intimate thing you own come up for scrutiny.

It was OK though, because the friends helping us to move have known us a long time, and don't really judge. They know how many spices I have hiding in the nooks and crannies of my pantry. They're well aware that I own many pairs of shoes. Seeing six large garbage bags full of clothing didn't manage to shock anyone at all.

Then there was all the stuff that you'd been meaning to fix, but never got around to. I decided to get rid of all such things, because if I haven't done so in two years, what makes me think that I'll do it now? Nothing at all. Out the broken clothes, electronics, etc. went. I also did a serious thinking about the dishes that we actually use in day-to-day life. The ceramic plates and such went away, to be replaced by the stainless steel dishes we use all the time. The glass tumblers were replaced by stainless steel as well.

I guess that ideally, I'd be OK with living in one apartment for many years, and not have to do this. However, having this forcible move thing going down means that I need to take stock, and seriously consider what needs to come with me, and what can be left behind. I'm happy to say that I managed to get the stuff I really did want, and leave behind the rest.

Left at Home

I checked my bag this morning before heading out to work, and was sure I’d put everything in there. Charger for laptop, laptop, backup hard drive for laptop, ipod, headphones, keys, phone, everything. Everything except the cigarettes and lighter.

It’s weird. I haven’t taken a smoke break while at work in over a year. For one thing, it’s damned expensive. For another, my boss isn’t too thrilled with the smell either. Most of all though, there’s frankly no time for it. If I have five minutes to stop and do something relaxing, I’ll drink some water, or chat with someone.

However, just like a security blanket, having the pack in my bag (for me) means that I can reach for a cigarette in the off chance that I’m craving one in the middle of the day. And this is completely different from those times that I leave for work, go through the day, and come home, only to find that the cigarettes are still sitting on the desk. In those cases, I didn’t know that I’d forgotten them. In this case, I noticed when I opened my bag at work.

I don’t anticipate it being a problem, which means that if I can get through today without going to the store to buy a new pack, then I can just start leaving the cigarettes at home all together. It’s easy enough to switch out that security with something else entirely, like salted nuts or something. Those will certainly be a lot more satisfying!

Turnip Soup (Corrected)

I had a long conversation with my mother about this, that and the other thing. She told me that she started reading my blog (everyone join me in saying hi to Amma: Hi Amma!) when she got back from Florida, as someone there told her about it. Hi to my friends in Florida too! OK, enough with the shout-outs.

She explained about the origin of turnip soup. I thought that it was a traditional South Indian soup. I was mistaken! In actuality, it was an invention of my mother’s, based on a Sri Lankan vegetable stew, made with potatoes, onions, and coconut. The reason she did the fenugreek in there was to make it healthier, as fenugreek is good for the stomach, the digestion, and life in general. It has alkalising qualities, which helps to balance out the environs of the stomach, and keeps things moving along smoothly.

The funny thing is that nobody ever thought twice of taking three, four, and five helpings of the soup, not caring about the traditional or not. The reason she did it her own way, is that she cooks the way I do: use what you have on hand, and make it work for your needs. It’s kind of why the turnip soup is such a good recipe to have on hand. Regardless of what you’re working with, you can make it tasty with just a few little tweaks here and there.

I think this is what makes cooking such a magical experience. Here you have me, who’s living in America, trying to hark back to my South Indian roots, and making food that my mother made for me. I make a modified version of what I grew up eating, because I’ve found ways and means that work for me. For example, in the original version of the turnip soup, my mother uses fresh grated coconut. I was able to do that for a bit while I lived in a Latino neighbourhood, and could have access to fresh coconut for about a dollar a piece. Once I moved to a better area, the coconuts suddenly became sub-par, and horribly expensive. For a while, I flirted with frozen and dessicated coconut, but it wasn’t quite the same thing.

Having your husband crack open the coconut, fiddle out the white part, and drink the juice from inside is an experience. Yes, the frozen coconut is technically the same as the stuff that I do from scratch, but it’s not quite as satisfying. The way Puppy does the coconut reminds me of how my father would do the coconut. He’d carefully strain out the water from inside the coconut, and offer it to either Amma or one of us kids first. He would certainly partake heartily and happily, but he’s still see to it that all of us got our share.

Then, he’d carefully remove the coconut itself from the shell, and leave it there waiting for my mother. When he taught Steve how to do that, it was his own way of welcoming Steve into the family. When Amma taught me how to make that soup, it was her way of passing on secrets from thousands of generations of talented cooks, all distilled into practical, easy to use knowledge.

Gives dinner a whole new edge, doesn’t it?

Goldilocks Smoothie

I'd been craving something all morning, and couldn't put my finger on it. I'd already had a piece of toast, some fruit, and plenty of water. I wanted something a bit more substantial, but not too filling, but not skimpy, like a glass of juice. The smoothies at Chow are delicious and filling but a little sweet for my liking (I prefer salty to sweet anyway). They don't add any sugar at all ever for any reason, but they certainly use a bit of fruit, and those bananas and berries can get sweet real quick like. I wanted something a lot more muted, but that would still be filling.

I thought of those mainstream smoothies from Odwalla. You know the type. They have oats and almonds and soy milk and bananas, and a bit of sugar and some other added vitamins and the rest. It's delicious, but also a bit on the sweet side for my liking. OK, it's a lot on the sweet side. Either way, that's what I was craving.

Fortunately, we've got one of those monster blenders at Chow, so a smoothie is fairly easy to crank out. In went some ice, a piece or two of frozen banana, a fairly large handful of almonds, a good hefty handful of oats, and finally a tiny splash of soy milk to get the whole mess going quickly. Off the blender went, chomping down all the ingredients into a smooth, creamy beverage. I didn't want it to be thick and ice-creamy like the Sacred Chow smoothies (seriously; you have to eat it with a spoon at first!), but rather a little more liquidy, so I could chug that thing down, and get on with my work.

For some reason, the oats got ground down to this neat consistency that was very much like using those store bought soy milks where they add the emulsifiers and the like. I didn't cook the oats, I just ground them up raw. The almonds were toasted, but I'd imagine it'd work just as well with soaked or raw almonds. The bananas were there to keep everything suspended. I feel like this would have been equally delicious with rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk, or even water! The almonds and the oats make their own kind of milk when you're grinding it up, and they just need some sort of liquid to be suspended in.

It's delicious.

Cliff said it reminded him of the porridge from Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Goldilocks Shake.

Mmm.

Audio of Dino explaining the whole smoothie thing.

Subscribe to Dino's show in iTunes: here.

EDIT: Here's a note from a friend of mine who tried this in his blender:

Back again. So I made this and it tastes great! My wife likes it a little sweeter so I threw in some pitted dates. Thanks again for the recipe!

ps. Make sure the ice goes in the bottom and you give it enough liquid at the beginning. Dont't do what I did and throw in half a carafe of oats with a tiny bit of liquid and then watch your (Blendtec!) blender start smoking because the oats get compacted under the blades. Follow the recipe and dont go crazy with the oats.

In other words, when you make a smoothie, ALWAYS put the ice at the bottom of the blender, so that you don't glom up the blades with all the products, and end up nuking your blender.

Minor whine

I had to install a couple of fonts on my work machine. On my mac, of course, there's the FontBook software that comes standard on OSX. You tell it to find the fonts on your media, install them, and get on with your life. I went to the Windows boxes (one was Vista, one was XP), and this is the screen I got on both of them.



Really? Is that the best they could do? Also, it didn't like the folders. I had to go back to the mac, search out all the .otf file, put them in a folder on a jump drive, go back to the PC, and have it done with. Why didn't I search on the PC? Mainly because I wanted to be done with the search some time this week. The biggest annoyance I have on the OSX system is that it searches in the full hard drive by default. This is fixed by clicking on "this folder" rather than "my computer" or whatever. That takes seconds.

The biggest whine I have about the PC search interface is that it can't decide what exactly to look like, and stay that way. On the XP box, it opens up that stupid dog, which is of no help. I know exactly what I'm searching for, and can do without the help. On the vista machine ...

Well, the less said, the better.

Come on, Microsoft. I know you're creating serious business machines, but can't you at least try to make the experience less painful? What is so terrible about the font software recognising the folders, and using them? It's sensible, and keeps things organised. And really, is that the absolute best you could come up with for an installing new fonts dialog? I've seen what you've done with the new Add/Remove Programs dialog. It looks damn nice, what with the hiding of the system updates, and other ugly things that get in the way. It's also sensible with how it all works out, because you click a few buttons, and everything works out in the end.

This is just a mess.

Turnip Soup

Turnips are relatively cheap in the winter, and are easy to find at any bodega or grocery store. So are potatoes, coconut milk, salt, and pepper. I'd made a turnip soup a couple of weeks back, and it finished almost as soon as we set it out. I think it lasted about a day or so, and I had made a fairly large batch of the stuff. Since it did finish so quickly, and we got a few requests for the recipe, I thought I'd share.

The secret ingredient is the fenugreek seeds. Those are absolutely required for the soup to work, because when boiled, they form the stock. The boiling seeds release this rich stock, which is packed with flavour and texture. People have been using the seed for thousands of years, and its health claims are wide and varied. I don't know or care about such claims. I just like that it tastes so good.

I'm using the ratios here to make the measuring easy. If you'd like to scale up or down, feel free to. The onion is strictly optional, as is the cabbage. The potatoes give body to the soup. If you don't have turnips, daikon radish, red radish, rutabaga, celeriac, jicama, chayote, parsnip, kohlrabi, salsify, or sunchokes. It's a very forgiving recipe, so if you want something more brothy, feel free to add more water. If you want more of a stewy texture, feel free to cut back on the liquid.

When I make this stew, I tend to stick to boiling potatoes, although it's a personal preference, and not strictly required. I also make very large batches, and freeze them in 1 litre containers, so that I can come back to it later, if need be, and have a meal in a hurry. This is a complete meal in a bowl. The coconut milk provides fat and protein, the potatoes give starch, and the vegetables give fibre and the other essential nutrients you'll need.

This is also not just restricted to the few vegetables I've included here. You are welcome to add dark leafy greens, leftover steamed veggies (at the end, of course), or pretty much any other thing that catches your fancy. I tend to avoid using beans, but again, that's a personal preference.

Turnip Soup

2 TB fenugreek seeds
2 litres water
2 medium sized potatoes
2 medium sized turnips
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 small onions (optional)
2 cups coconut milk
2 big pinches of salt (or more, as you wish; this is also optional)

In a large stock pot, pour in 2 litres (about a half gallon, give or take) of cold water, and sprinkle in the fenugreek seeds. Place it over high heat, and cover the lid of the pot. While the water comes up to a boil, peel (optional) and dice (required) the potatoes and turnips. They don't need to be small. In fact, it's better if you chop them on the somewhat large size, so that they don't fall apart in the cooking process.

Peel and dice your onions relatively small. When the water has been at a full rushing boil for about 10 minutes, slide in the potatoes, turnips, and turmeric. Let the ingredients in the pot cook together, covered, at a fierce boil, for 10 minutes. Add in the diced onions, and cover the lid again. Let it continue to boil for 10 minutes more.

When the biggest piece of potato and the biggest piece of turnip you have in the pot have become tender, turn off the heat. Pour in the coconut milk, and stir through to combine. Add salt if you wish (although it doesn't strictly need it), stir through a couple more times. Serve piping hot, with some rice, bread, or just all by itself.

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As I said, this works perfectly well with any other vegetables you'd like to add to it, but I like the simplicity of just a couple of vegetables, some spices, and a bit of coconut milk. There's something that's so honest and earthy about it.

However, there are times when I don't have *quite* enough of each ingredient to make this "properly" so I tend to improvise. That's when I'll slide in some shredded cabbage, some thinly sliced carrots, leftover peas, a bit of corn, and some of that kale that looks like it's seen better days. If I'm using the kale stems, I'll add them towards the beginning of cooking (along with the potato and turnip). If you have red cabbage, it'll add even more to the riot of colours going on in the pot.

Of course, if you're fortunate enough to have raw peanuts with their skins still on, I'd add them in with the potatoes and turnips and have such a mouth-watering stew. Peanuts aren't a nut, they're a legume. It's just that we're used to seeing them in their relatively fresh stage, unlike most legumes which we're used to seeing dried. This means that you don't have to soak them before you cook them.

If you've ever traveled through the American South, you'll know the pleasures of boiled peanuts. Now imagine that wonderful, savoury taste going through and infiltrating your stew! Yum.

The reason that I say that the salt is optional is because there are some foods that are so delicious on their own that they don't even need to have salt added. I'm a bit of a salt fiend, so I tend to salt anyway, but many of my friends try to watch their diets, and keep salt restricted or eliminated from their day-to-day lives. If you're one of those people, feel free to omit the salt all together.

Before I leave you, I'd like to mention that this is one of those South Indian peasant dishes that you don't get unless you're eating at the house of a South Indian. It's invented from the need to make your vegetables stretch a long way, and feed more people than they usually would. Even so, it's still so delicious that it doesn't matter if it's not high gourmet food. It's comforting, filling, and warms you up from the inside out (and I speak literally; it's the perfect winter soup!) from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.

Just New Year after this.

This year, we had masses of people over at my apartment for the 25^th. Usually, my husband would go to Chicago to visit his family, and I’d call up my friends to party in the city. This year, however, we were really tight on money, so that was flat out not an option. Even if our parents covered the costs of the flight, we’d still be out of luck, because then we’d both miss days of work (and thereby, the pay from said work). It was simply not at all possible to finagle it this year. Instead, I figured on having our friends come over instead, and cooking with/for everyone.

Honestly, it couldn’t have been better. We were all sitting about in two groups. Some at the dining room table, and some at the kitchen. I did the silly thing and forgot to snag extra cutting boards, even though I had plenty of knives. Fortunately, I don’t really care too much about the wooden dining room table, so I just had everyone cut directly on that surface.

In the kitchen, all four burners were going, as well as the oven. We polished off an entire bottle of sparkling cider between the three of us in the first half hour! So as before, I’ll recap a couple of things I learned at this event, and maybe we can all learn from my pitfalls and come out with a better understanding!

Sparkling cider is freaking popular! I didn’t realise how much it was popular until I had some friends over for Thanksgiving. I ordered two or three bottles for a small group of friends coming over. It was to be only two people in the group who don’t drink. The rest of us consume alcohol at parties. Fine.

I’m thinking that I’ll just get a couple of bottles of cider for the two non-drinkers, and wine and spirits for the others. Either because of the festive occasion or because not everyone wanted to consume much alcohol, the sparkling cider disappeared. This time, I ordered six bottles of sparkling cider, and three bottles of wine (and asked my guests to bring wine). Again, demolished in no time flat, by even the non drinkers! Next time, I’m ordering enough that there’s a little vodka to supplement the cider if people want something with alcohol in it, but the beverage of choice shall be sparkling cider. And I bet it’ll still get finished at the end of the night.

Don’t ask people to just bring wine or even a dish. If you’re having a large party, give people the option of bringing disposable Tupperware, zip top bags, or aluminum foil. One of my husband’s friends brought an enormous stack of the Ziploc containers, and it was priceless at the end of the night, with regards to sending out leftovers, and putting away stuff for our own. Heck, you could even ask folk to bring their own cutting board or knife, so that your resources aren’t stretched. That way, even those friends of yours (or family) who are coming up on hard times don’t have to feel left out.

Anything long-cooking, like beans or rice, should be done well in advance, so as to avoid last-minute head aches of the “But I’m hungry noooooooow” variety. In fact, come to think of it, have some kind of snack ready immediately as people are walking in, even if you’re all cooking together, because it means that they’ll be able to take that sharp edge off the immediate hunger, and gnosh on something while chatting and removing coats, taking off winter boots, and getting settled in. As the food and the wine start coming out of the kitchen, people can start eating what they’d like.

What I tend to do is boil chickpeas overnight in the crock pot, and have them ready in the morning. That way, if they’re not cooked through to my liking, I have time to let them cook at a full boiling the morning of. It’s not terribly much work, but it’s one more thing to do that’s out of my way. Then, about 10 minutes before anyone’s due to arrive, I whip up a quick hummus (tahini, lemon, oil, salt, garlic, more garlic, and toasted cumin seeds that I crush up in my pestle & mortar).

If I have time, I’ll toast off the pita bread or French bread that I’ve bought the previous day (or that day itself if I’m running a little late the day before!) but I’ve found that this step just makes it incredibly delicious, and isn’t strictly required. Any leftover chickpeas go into the salad (if there is a salad), or back in the fridge in the event of a chickpea emergency (i.e., you run out of hummus!).

Then, as people are nibbling that, I’ll start churning out the fried food, be it Indian (bajji, pakora), or from elsewhere (falafel, various fritters). Fried food needs to be eaten piping hot. Since I use my cast iron skillet for deep frying, it helps season the iron while I’m doing the frying, so that I can cook the next thing in there when I’m done frying. Of course, while I’m doing the deep frying, I tend to borrow oil from the deep fry pot, and don’t bother using the fresh oil. It imparts a delicious flavour to the rest of the food (because of the amount of spices in the Indian dishes, and the amount of garlic in the falafel!), and means that I’m not wasting oil, which is pretty expensive.

Once everyone’s been munching away at the fried food, it gives me time to churn out the beans dish, spice up the rice, cook the dark leafy greens, make the raw item (either carrot/cabbage/cilantro salad, or avocado/tomato/onion/chili, both of which are dressed with just lemon juice and a bit of salt), and start pulling the slow cooking dishes (casseroles, roasts, etc.) from the oven. When all is said and done, I’ve got a pretty impressive spread. And since nobody’s eating everything all at once, they have time to space out the food, and make plenty of room in there to eat more. The best part is that everything can be enjoyed piping hot, fresh off the stove or oven.

I think I just got the nicest email today. I wanted to share it with you all.

Hey Dino,
I ordered another copy of your cookbook to give to a friend as a Giftmas present. I ordered it through tofu hound press and paid 11 dollars (gulp) for shipping, to get it here fast. I hope it can get here before Giftmas. I am going to wrap it up for her along with some cuman seeds, black mustard seeds, tumeric and corriander seeds in nice reusable containers (glass jars with resealable lids) I'm going to put ribbons and bows around the containers and label them. It will be perfect!
Love,
Me

It's from my friend Shannon, who lives in the frozen north, AKA Canada. I think she's in Winnipeg? Something like that. Either way, it's one of those "I really care about you" type gifts, because she's providing pretty close to everything one needs to make pretty close to most of the recipes found in the book.

I hope Shannon's friend thoroughly enjoys the spices, and the book. If she hates the book, at least she's still got some awesome spices!

Just in time.

It was a niggling voice of paranoia that made me leave the house at 2:15 to get to work by 4, but I certainly paid attention to it. Headphones in, wallet in bag, and shipment ready to post. I made it here by 3:30. Usually it takes me 20 minutes flat to get to the village, but as the fates were conspiring to make it a particularly crazy Saturday, I decided not to take any chances.

Off I went to the post office. I had to send a book media mail, and it should ostensibly take about five minutes flat to get in and out. Good thing I planned on giving myself extra time. The queue at the post office took a goodly 45 minutes to power through. What a mess! It looks like folk were shipping out their holiday goodies today at the same time, and there will be no chance of getting through quickly.

Fine by me. I had time to spare. Out I ran at 3:00 to see the bus roll up. I silently sent a prayer of gratitude to the man who had to get his wheelchair out of the bus, because it held up the bus for a few minutes, so that when I got to the bus stop, the bus was just starting to board. Panting, I slid my card in, and got on.

Onwards to the subway stations. "Ladies and gentlemen, there will be no Queens bound trains coming to this stop until Monday at 5 AM.

Score. I could still make it to work without taking that infernal tram (we live on Roosevelt Island, and when taking east side trains, I take the tram, and to go to the west side, I take the F train). Although the trip home might take a bit longer than usual, the crucial bit (getting to work on time) was well within my grasp. Just as I swiped my metro card on the turnstile, the lift was opening. I made a semi-sprint for it, and made it into the lift with plenty of time to spare.

Down the lift descended, to the bowels of the Roosevelt Island stop. The doors opened to show the subway just pulling into the station.

Nice.

I got on the train, which went from stop to stop without a pause, drag, or "train traffic ahead" slow down. We pulled into West 4th almost exactly 25 minutes later. Very very nice indeed. I got out of the train station to walk past unresisting walk signs all the way through and sailed through the door at 3:35.

Which leaves me plenty of time to get on here, say hi to you lovely folks, and relax for a couple of minutes before work starts. One hopes that the rest of the day proves to be as smooth sailing.

I'm reminded of a dinner I had at my place, when the guests were just coming in, and the only thing that was done was the rice. Bad. Also, there was only one burner working. Worse. Also, I couldn't find the cooked beans. Catastrophe.

I popped open a tin of chickpeas, threw in some tahini, some bottled (gasp!) lemon juice, garlic, and a splash of olive oil, and let the food processor rip. While that was going, I got a pan screaming hot. In went some oil, cumin seeds, and sesame seeds. When the seeds were popped, I dumped in a bag of baby spinach. I slammed on the lid, and turned around to open the food processor, and scrape down the sides. Again, off it went. I thinned it out with a bit of water, and let it keep going. I turned back to the spinach, and saw that it was barely wilted. Perfect.

I turned off the heat, and tossed it through a couple more times. I set out a loaf of bread, and the hummus and spinach, and encouraged everyone to tear off a piece of bread, spread on some hummus, and pile up the spinach. It was a novel (and delicious) idea, and everyone was raving about it. While they were distracted, I grated some carrots and cabbage into the food processor (without washing it; the hummus would provide a dressing!). I scraped out every last bit of goodness from the food processor, and tossed the cabbage and carrot with the hummus. Then into the microwave went 2 tins of black beans in a pyrex dish, along with a bit of cumin powder. Nuked that for 5 minutes. As soon as the microwave beeped, I threw in some chopped cilantro to round out the flavour.

Five minutes later, the main part of the meal was on the table (beans, rice, salad). For dessert, I sliced up some lovely fruit that I had lying around (apples and pears) and served them on a block of rock salt. It was lovely.

Point is that even when your best laid plans fall apart, if you can think on your feet, you'll still be fine. Just have a couple of things in your house (tinned beans, very quick cooking veg, some bread, fruit), and you're bound to be OK even when things are going nuts around you.

Be yourself.

I was talking to my mother the other day, and we were discussing how she had a party for my baby sister’s (who isn’t such a little one anymore; the girl has a baby of her own now!) birthday. She’d made some noodles, lemon rice, potato curry, a few other dishes, and like a macaroni with pasta sauce. I was confused as to why they’d bothered with the macaroni drill, because there was so much other food, all of which would be quite delicious, and was distinctly Indian in both execution and flavour. She wasn’t quite sure why. I guess my sister thought that since the preponderance of people coming over were American, they’d be able to relate to it more.

Three guesses what finished first, and the first two don’t count.

She had all of one cup of lemon rice left over. She had none of the potatoes (and she’d made something to the tune of 12 lbs of the stuff) left, none of the other veg left, and pretty close to all of the pasta left over. Furthermore, the stuff that she kept mild (no chilli) was left over in greater quantity than the stuff she added the heat to. Why is this? Let’s think about it for a moment.

For one thing, people are coming to your house to have your company. Yes, the food is often a lovely bonus, but in reality, it’s you they’re there to see. Whatever you make is going to be a good thing. It’s much like going out for a meal with friends. Yes, there are times when the service or food are less than stellar, but for the most part, you’re there for each other’s company.

The other thing is that when you cook a unique style of food, people are going to your house to get stuff that they can’t get anywhere else. Think about it. If people come to my house, they know they’re going to get my special hummus that I make with obscene amounts of garlic and toasted cumin. They know that they’ll get an excellent daal. They know that they’ll get some kind of roasted vegetable, some kind of curried vegetable, and some kind of green cooked with coconut milk. It’s more or less a given.

At my mother’s house, you know you’re going to get a stewed veg, some kind of curried veg, some lemon rice (because it really /is/ that popular) and a raw salad. It’s pretty much a given. In fact, it’s so much a given that people specifically come to her house for it, since she does it so well. That’s what I had to talk to her about. People love her cooking, and can get pasta any old place. They don’t need to come to her house for it! And furthermore, they love her hot spicy food. Add the chilli! It’ll still be delicious, and if someone can’t take that much heat, they’ll eat more salad and balance it out.

The point I’m trying to make is this: be true to yourself. Yes, you can try to do things that are “accessible”, but it won’t be you, which is the entire reason that your friends are coming to visit in the first place. They want your food, your cooking, and your company. Yes, it’ll be different from what they’re used to, but that’s OK!

I guess part of it comes from her experiences in the past, where people thought that our food is “weird” and didn’t know what to do with it. But that was years and years ago, before the advent of the Internet, and before people were familiar with Indian cookery and spices. Nowadays, you can find cumin anywhere in the country. You can find turmeric in pretty much any grocery store. Heck, I even passed by a grocery store that had cardamom, and I haven’t seen that in a mainstream store before. Times are changing, and people are changing.

What would have been made fun of in the past is now looked upon with longing. It’s the same for your own culture (or another culture, if you’re given to borrowing). People aren’t so afraid of “unusual” anymore, and are fairly adventurous, if you just give them a chance. So give them a chance, and let them see the real you. They’ll thank you for it!

Thanksgiving. Yes please.

Step by Step

The kitchen is, as always, a hive of activity. Mind you, it’s for a different reason than usual, but it’s still a little crazed in there, with regards to the prep work. Of course, we’ve got people ordering the regular food today, as well as deliveries. Enter Boss Man and Laura Lady. Chef Laura Dardi came in to help us with the masses of food that we’ll be cooking today. You don’t realise what /scale/ means until your boss casually asks you to weigh out twelve pounds of pumpkin to make pie.

And that’s just for the gluten free pumpkin pies.

What I’ve noticed is that during all this prep work frenzy, things tend to work really well when you have a system. Either you tag-team, or solo it. If you solo it, it works really well to go assembly line fashion. For instance, if you’re going to boil some pumpkins to make pumpkin pie, you first peel all your pumpkins. Then you scoop out all the seeds from all the pumpkins. Then you chop them up into pieces. Then you tip it all into hot boiling water, to boil. Then you rinse and drain the seeds, and dry them off lightly. Then you toast the seeds in the oven. It’s not because you need to use the seeds for the pie, but why let perfectly good pumpkin seeds go to waste? The chef needs a snack too, right? Then, you do all the other steps, one at a time, to everything.

The reason? When you’re cooking in large scale, you want to be able to stop at a certain point, and put it off till later, if the need should arise. For example, when I’m preparing for a large quantity of people coming over, I tend to freeze the process in the middle for those things that take multiple steps. With mixed rice (lemon rice, coconut rice, etc.), I’ll cook the rice, then put it into gallon sized zip top baggies, and put them in the fridge, to get cold cold cold. Then, the next day, all I have to do is make the spice blend, and toss the rice through on top of the stove. This ensures that my rice is perfectly separate, while still heating through at the last minute, when I need it to be heated through. It avoids the aggravation of having the rice dry out in the oven, and it saves me a significant headache on the day of, because if the rice is mushy, I can make something else (VENN PONGAL WUT WUT!) and salvage it, rather than looking foolish on the day of.

Try it out at home. When you have a large amount of stuff to do, complete it in steps, a day or two in advance. Then, on the day of, just wrap up all the loose ends, and look like a superstar.

Good Website, Good software

There's been a couple of computer based things that have been making me twitch with annoyance, and they stem from both web and off-line software. I may not get time to go into everything, but I'll hit the big boys.

Don't reside in systray (PC) or menubar (OSX). I put things in my menubar, because I want them there. I have very specific tools that I use on a daily basis, and want to have residing there. Else, it lives on the dock, and I ignore it until I need it. If you're going to take up space on my menubar (or in a PC, my systray), there had better be a damned good reason for it that makes it show up there, or else I'll be turning it off. I don't have to be reminded of software. When I want something done, I'll go to it, because I know exactly where I placed it.

If you make software that has to reside in my menu bar while it runs, chances are that I'm going to find reasons not to use it, and eventually uninstall it. I'm looking at you, Twitterific. I'm looking at you, every piece of software from Intego. In fact, I even get annoyed when software places itself in my menubar without asking, like Adium. Fortunately for Adium, it lets you remove it from the menubar, so I still use it.

You may think that you're being "clever" by forcing your presence in my menubar, but you're not. You're being a fucking twat. So enjoy your obscurity while I uninstall you, and never turn back. I'll either find a way to use another piece of software that'll do the same thing, and NOT shove itself in my face, or I'll decide that the task isn't important enough for me to be arsed about, and I'll continue doing it by hand.

NO PDFs EVER, unless you have text to back it up. This one's a big one. It used to be that you'd only get a PDF when the formatting mattered so much that having the raw text would outright make the content useless. Think of situations like instruction manuals with images, bookmarks, and all sorts of other useful features. If you're reading an instruction manual, you more or less expect a PDF, because without one there, everything jumps thither and yon, and you can't really do much about it, can you?

I even (to a lesser extent) understand the need for a PDF when you're doing something legally binding, like a form or other such thing, so that the content isn't easily altered. Few people have the software necessary to edit a PDF. So far, so good.

In the case of a menu, or catalogue, or any other such thing when you're simply browsing, and don't want to make too much of a commitment that comes with downloading the PDF, and viewing it, or waiting for it to try to load in your browser, and watching the browser crash and burn. Don't pretend like it's never happened to you! I know it has. I have a very nice machine, and even my browser crashes at PDFs. So when you're presenting data, like what's on the menu, or what's in a catalogue, have the bulk of the contents presented in plain text. If someone really does give a shit about your formatting, they can download the PDF at their discretion.

When I browse to a website, especially for a restaurant, and it takes me the better part of five minutes to wrangle through the PDF to figure out what you have, I'm going to just skip it all together, and try somewhere else. If I order from the place a lot, I'll actually download the PDF and print out the menu. However, it'll never get to that point if accessing the menu is damn near impossible.

No obnoxious splash screens (web or software). If it takes more than 15 seconds to load, you'd better be offering so much functionality with that load time that it's worth the wait. Even then, you're going to end up pissing people off. For example, those nightclub websites that have "fancy" flash splash screens that you want to skip anyway. The faster your home page loads, the more likely someone will be to stick around and check it out. If you entire navigation hinges on a single element loading, chances are that you're going to break someone's browser, and piss them off enough that they don't come back. Was that flashy splash screen worth it?

This goes double for splash screens for software. Unless it's a slow-loading software (I'm looking at you, Adobe), the splash screen is really not necessary. Neither are welcome screens. I don't want ANY of it. Just load the bloody thing, and let me plunge in head first. Don't ask me what sort of thing I want to do. Just load a blank page, and let me make changes as necessary. Think about it. Why are you going to invest time and money into a feature that most people will see as a nuisance (at best), may cause crashes (at worst), and be disabled by most of the people who trip past it (at least). When you're on a website, how many splash pages do you actually watch (y'know, instead of hitting "skip intro" if they give that option)?

There are very specific cases where flash is necessary, such as when the functionality of the site hinges on it (I'm looking at you, online games). But if the same thing can be done with simple pages, with a couple of very minor, tiny flash tweaks to make it look smoother, why not do that instead of making the whole entire page a flash environment? It's like those fuckers who ask you to use margarine in baking, and then promptly ask you to melt it.

USE OIL.

Don't set obnoxious defaults, like loading up at startup. It's why I refused to run skype for so many years. I knew full well that I could disable this option but (1) it didn't used to be so blatantly simple to do so, and (2) it was the principle of the thing. I find it an insult to my intelligence when software assumes to know what's best for me, and sets obnoxious defaults, thus slowing down my machine. Your antivirus starting up with the operating system is one thing. Anti virus software is critical for a computer running smoothly. Skype and AOL instant messenger, are NOT crucial to my machine functioning. In fact, they will slow me down. For years, I flatly refused to use Skype or have it running on any of the machines I maintained. Even now, I only use it rarely, and that's only because there are specific people I have to contact, and I have no other way of contacting them. All because of that initial (and persistent) insult.

No "tag along" software. Say it with me: "If I downloaded YOUR software, that's the only thing I want to install." Google is pretty capable of running the world, but packaging that toolbar along with every software known to mankind was not only obnoxious, it made me boycott both the software that made it tag along AND the toolbar itself. Let me tell you how annoying it is to have to go through and uninstall that fucking thing again when you work in a computer lab. You have to go through and log out the current user. Then log in as admin. Then uninstall it. Then close the browser window asking you why you uninstalled it. Then scream and throw things. Then lather, rinse, and repeat about 49 more times.

Per. Room.

Don't use audio unless explicitly necessary. Youtube has a reason to access my speakers. I'm there to watch videos, whose content would fall flat without the audio. There's a couple of websites that use audio to enhance your game playing experience, so that you're not listening to the sounds of your crisp packet as you spend hours clicking the same buttons repeatedly. A website for a night club may get away with it if they have a "music player" up top that you can hit stop on. That's the end of it. All other uses for audio in websites need to be banned. No, Mr. Restaurant. You shouldn't be blasting crappy techno music on your home page. No, website for random person who's looking for "acting work". You have no reason for your street musician crap assaulting my ears while I visit your corner of the web. Turn it off, or I'll turn it off for you.

Point is that overall, you want to avoid annoying the people you're looking to reach. This past month has just been a stack of that, so I figured I'd rant, rather than take it out in little passive aggressive ways on the people who surround me.

I swear, it was an accident when I forgot to make more rice yesterday night.

Creamy Hummus Every Time

Someone from the vegan forums that I'm on wrote in to ask about her hummus. Let's see what she had to say. Vegan K wrote:

Hi Dino!

Let me first say that I love your Podcast! I have been listening to them since you first started and I have really enjoyed them all. Many of your techniques and ideas mirror my own and so at last I don't feel so alone in my in my approach to the kitchen :) -- But believe me, you have touch me much as well.

My question is about canned beans, or tinned beans as you would say, versus dry beans.
I make a mean hummus, but whenever I use dry beans the hummus seems less flavorful and the texture is not as smooth. Mind you my processor is not that great so the texture difference is very noticeable.
I have added more liquid to the dry beans concoctions and have thrown in additional salt but it still doesn't seem to have the same texture and flavor that I get with canned beans.
Any suggestions?
I was thinking maybe it is something that I have to get used to, like when you change from "Skippy" peanut butter to the "Natural". When I eat the Skippy kind at a relative's house I want to gag nowadays.

But still, the questions is Why?!

Thank you for your wonderful shows... sometimes I listen to them if I am just in a crabby mood... your voice and demeanor is very comforting.

Kathleen (katieo - VeganFreak forums)

The thing about tinned beans is that they're consistent. The manufacturers have enormous cooking pots that clean, sort, and cook the beans to perfection. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to have happen at home. So. there's a couple of things you can do to ensure that your dry beans (especially chickpeas, as they take an extraordinary amount of time to cook) will cook all the way through. They're all fairly important, but there's a couple that are more important than others. When you've read through the procedure, you can either tweak your own method, or decide that it's all too much effort, and just stick to tinned beans! I'm kidding. In reality, this whole process is actually extremely simple. I'm just being detailed, so that you have a framework from which to work. Most of the "work" is leaving the beans alone.

Before working with any dried beans, always turn them out onto a cookie sheet, and check for any stones or other foreign material. Then, when you're ready to start the soaking, wash them under cold running water, until the water runs clear. Even if you're buying organic beans, you're still unable to know what's been going on in the processing plant, the storage warehouse, etc. etc. Best not to take any chances, and just get them rinsed clean. It only takes one or two washes anyway. Sorting and washing the beans takes about two minutes, and is well worth it.

1. Soak your beans well, for a minimum of 8 hours, in cold water. The "quick soak" method is fine if you're just using the beans for a chickpea dish, but for hummus, we're doing everything just so, and it's worth spending the extra step of properly soaking them in cold water. When soaked, the beans have a chance to slowly re-hydrate, and expand their volume. It also give a chance for any impurities and the like to leak out into the soaking liquid. It's best to set them in cold water before you wind up the kitchen for the night. Some people start just before they go to bed, but for me, giving it those couple extra hours before I even think of bed helps me to remember to soak them, and it gives the soaking a couple of extra hours.

Another thing to remember is that you're soaking your beans in a lot of water. If you start out with about two cups of beans, you're going to want 6 - 8 cups (or 1 1/2 - 2 litres) of water. There are many reasons for this, principle among them being that you want the beans to have enough water to "drink up". Aside from that, I just feel like my beans turn out better when I give them plenty of water to soak in. In other words, for every cup of beans you start with dry, soak them in 3 - 4 cups of water.

2. The next day, when they've been thoroughly soaked, drain off the soaking liquid completely. Place a pot of water on the stove, and crank the heat onto high. For every cup of beans (dry) that you started with, put in 3 cups of water into the pot to boil. As you wait for the water to come to a boil, rinse the beans off a couple of times. This is especially important if you're not using organic beans. Any of the chemicals or pesticides should be rinsed down the sink, and not go into your food. Anything in the water will inhibit the cooking process. This includes salt, the chemicals on the surface of the beans, or anything else. Keep things clean, and you'll be fine.

3. When the water comes up to a full, rushing, rolling boil, drop the soaked and rinsed chickpeas into the boiling water. Wait for the water to come back up to a full rushing boil. At this point, start timing about 10 minutes. Let them continue to boil at that high heat rushing boil for about 10 minutes. If you go over a minute or two, it's no biggie, but try not to go under 10 minutes. After boiling fiercely for 10 minutes, drop down the heat to as low as it'll go, and cook gently until they're tender (about 2.5 hours or so). Do not let the water come back to the boil after that initial 10 minute boiling. Cooking at too high a temperature will result in cooked but firm beans. You want your chickpeas to be so tender that you can easily mash them with a potato masher.
If you have a pressure cooker, let the beans cook according to the manufacturer's instructions. Exact times will be on the manual that came with the pot.

On mine, chickpeas take about 10 - 12 minutes, but your pot will have its own instructions specific to yours. Follow the instructions exactly, and cook towards the higher minute range listed. If it says 10 - 12 minutes, let it go for 12 minutes. Let the pressure come down by itself (don't do "quick release").

When the chickpeas are boiled completely, let them sit in the hot cooking water until you're ready for them. Because you've cooked them so long, chances are that you won't need to use too terribly much water in the hummus itself.

For the hummus, start with your very well cooked chickpeas. Beat them around a bit with a wooden spoon. If they don't easily mash up this way, the beans aren't cooked enough. They'll need longer on the stove. If they do, however, beat up fairly easily, you're just about where you wanna be. Combine the chickpeas with the olive oil, garlic, salt, tahini, and lemon juice. Toss the chickpeas and the other ingredients until well combined. Then, fill your food processor only half way full with this yummy chickpea mixture (which frankly, I'd be quite happy to eat as-is, because it's quite delicious all on its own). Pulse a few times until the chickpeas are broken down. THEN crank it up to full speed, and let the hummus grind down. Open the top, and scrape down the sides frequently.

The reason for doing this is two-fold. For one thing, you're thoroughly combining the ingredients and flavours together long before it goes into the food process, making it so that the food processor isn't working so hard. For another, when the food processor is only half full, it can really grind your hummus down without very much fat or water. Once the hummus is down to a paste, you add a bit of water, a couple tablespoons or so at a time, until it's the desired smoothness and creaminess.

This would not work if the food processor were full, however. It only works when you do the method I described.

Hope this gives you some ideas as to where to tweak your current procedure! Thanks for writing in.

Dino

Midweek Over, time for weekend

As soon as Puppy got home with the CSA share, I decided to cook everything up the next day itself, because I've seen far too many veg go the way of the dodo, because I took too bloody long to get to them. This is good, because nothing spoiled. This is bad, because I now have 10 lbs of potatoes, some onions, 1/4 of a cabbage (which is what was left after making piles of cabbage soup, which is still making my tummy happy) and spices. This means that the next couple of days will be a bit ... interesting, unless I make a grocery store order, which would mean staying home until they come in with it. And what would I get from the store anyway? More cabbage, more onions, more potatoes. I think the cabbage and potatoes in my fridge don't really need the company.

So this means that I'll need to get a little creative. Fortunately for myself, I've kept my pantry rather well stocked. I've got various tinned and dried beans, noodles (thin and thick), pasta (spaghetti, macaroni, rotelle), rice (sushi, basmati, long grain), and of course, all the spices I'd need to cook all those things up.

Since we have been eating fairly healthy, I can go with something a little junk food-y. Enter beans and pasta. The tomatoes aren't strictly necessary, but I think they're nice, all the same.

The thing about beans and rice is that they're delicious, nutritious, and filling, but they can get monotonous, unless you've got a nice variety of vegetables (raw and cooked) to accompany. Frankly, I don't think that my potatoes and onions are going to do much for me on that account. However, if I put them on pasta, they do tend to feel like a break from the norm, and it's a nice enough change of pace that I can get away with (essentially) not very much else, since Puppy and I are both fiends about pasta.

We eat rice (literally) every single day, and it's our usual food. Pasta is a fair bit more expensive than rice, so I tend not to buy it very frequently, and when it comes on sale, I tend to go a little nuts, and buy like 10 or 15 boxes. This means that if it were left to us, said 10 or 15 boxes would be gone quite neatly in 2 or 3 weeks. And then it'd mean no pasta again until the stuff comes on sale. This is why I tend to get a fair bit, but stretch it out a little. Maybe over the course of two or three months.

So. What I do is that I start off as if I were making a very sturdy pot of beans. I boil them up in the slow cooker, stove, or pressure cooker (depending on whether or not I've soaked them), and drain off the cooking liquid. I rinse them off to remove all vestiges of cooking liquid. Instead of cooking them like a soup or a stew, I tend to do the dry roasting technique, like I've got in the book (dry roasted garbanzo beans). Essentially, you start off with popping of spices (I like cumin and coriander), add a touch of aromatics (garlic, onions, whatever), and then toss in the drained and rinsed cooked beans. I cook it off until the spices have melded nicely.

I tend to be a little generous with the oil, because I find that the pasta likes that little extra bit of oil. Then, I toss through some roughly diced tomatoes, and cook them with the beans until they're wilted and release a bit of a gravy from their juices. It's quite a savoury smell coming up from the pot at this point. To finish, I throw in some basil and parsley, and a bit of salt to taste. I toss it through with my short cooked pasta (rotelle, farfalle, macaroni, what have you), and throw in a splash of lemon if it needs it. You could serve it with some crusty bread and a green salad, but I don't because this is the sort of thing I make when I don't have the vegetables I need for greens, salad, or much of anything else.

If I did, I'd have made beans and rice.