Generosity.

There's a couple of stories for this post, so please bear with me if you don't care for the more rambly of stories. There's the story of how I got to Chow, and the story about the $6 hero special.

It was a viciously slumpy month for us, and we hadn't had many people coming in. Neither of us could figure it out. The food was good. The people working here were friendly and kind. The wait times to get said food was reasonable. So what gives? This is about the time that we started getting aggressive calls from the deals websites, where you would offer X amount of food for 1/2 the amount of cost.

What they don't tell you is that the business only sees about 1/2 of what you paid for that voucher. The site offering the promotion keeps the other half. It's essentially like a loan, but with even worse rates than the worst loan shark ever. You're selling food for half the amount that it's worth, and then only seeing half of that money that you sold the voucher for. However, when you're in a tight spot, you start to consider those things feasible.

I reached a point of frustration, and said, "What about the folk who come here every day? If we're willing to sell our food for a fraction of what it's worth, and consider it promotion budget (advertising budget), then why can't we just offer the savings directly to the customers?" "Good point", he said. So we hatched the $6 hero deal. You get just the sandwich (no cheese, no Chow Slaw, no pickle. Which also means that the packaging is slashed by 75%, because now you just need to pack the sandwich in a piece of parchment paper, some foil, and a paper bag if the customer wants. With the regular heroes, it's the slaw, placed into a ramekin with its lid, the pickle, wrapped in foil, a fork, because you need something to eat the slaw with, and then the bag to carry that whole shebang with you. Yipes!

At the end of the day, it was cheaper for us too. And it made it so that people got to try our awesome sandwiches. And it meant that we could give people exactly what they wanted. It also meant that during our historically slow times (between 12 and 2), we could get more people to come in. The response was spectacular. People loved the fact that they could get a Kosher, vegan, organic sandwich for the cost of a couple of cups of coffee at certain national branded coffee chain. What's even better is that if you really did want the pickle or the slaw, you could request the stuff and pay a little extra, at your option.

So Cliff said, "It's like when you open up to the world with generosity, the universe brings it back to you."

It inspired us to really take a look at our menu, and look at the things that have gone down in cost, things that are easier to have made, because now everyone knows how to do them, and where we could offer lower prices and keep the "extras" on the side. We went through and pulled back the cost of a couple of the tapas, decreased the cost of the hero (now $10 instead of $12, and the cheese is $2 extra; so many people didn't get the cheese that it didn't seem fair to charge them for something they didn't want). We also decreased the cost of some of the desserts (cupcake, pound cake, etc).

Again, it was about opening up our arms, and letting folk know that we're thinking about them. Since we started getting a better price for our organic sugar and flour, we could afford to cut back the cost of those two things.

So now, a sandwich costs $10 (normal price), and a cupcake is $2.75. For a little more than what you used to pay for just a sandwich, you get a sandwich /and/ a dessert. And so now, people are actually ordering them way more frequently than they ever have before.

Which kind of brings me back to how I started working here in the first place.

It was back in November of 2007, and Steve and I had just moved to New York city. He had a job at the time, and was pulling in decent money. I didn't have to work, but I didn't want to faff about the house, doing nothing at all. However, I did love to cook (always had) and had a few copies of my cookery book with me. My Steve had let me know that a friend of a friend was working for NYU SEAL (an animal rights club), and they needed help with cooking for about 50 people, on a $50 budget.

In Manhattan.

Also, nobody could afford to do it from a restaurant, because they didn't have that kind of money.

Also, they wanted it vegan, and local, and seasonal.

Also, they couldn't afford to pay me.

I wasn't bothered about the money. I just love a challenge like that. I let Ashleigh (this was the person in charge of the food) that not only could we feed everyone who came, but we could feed them rice, beans, salad, and a vegetable dish, along with some kind of apple crisp. Yes, for less than the $50.

She was thrilled, and offered to buy me lunch at my favourite restaurant: Sacred Chow. Every time I came up to New York, I would jump in a Taxi and ask to be taken to Sacred Chow for at least one meal there. And at the end of each meal, I'd get a sinner bar. When Ashleigh offered to take me there, I jumped at the chance, so that the two of us could meet in person, and chatter away at each other about the food.

Apparently, she could offer a kitchen in one of the dorms nearby. It was fairly ill-equipped, but we'd have a lot of helpers. Also, the helpers had plenty of heart. I realise that this all sounds like a bad movie script, but it all really did happen.

You see, when you grow up poor, one of the things that you realise early on is that you can't always offer money to a cause, even though you may feel strongly about its goals. So you offer your time, your talents, and your heart. My mother was very good at this. Every week, when the Hindu temple in South Florida was a house that the community bought together, and filled with an altar and the things needed for a temple, my mother would pile us all into the car hours before the services started, loaded with food (at least a rice dish, and sometimes a rice dish and a vegetable dish), and all the kids. We'd get there very early, clean everything up, make it look presentable, and set out the floor mats for the people to come in and sit on. Then, we'd leave hours after everything was done.

Whatever the other people did or didn't think of it, whether or not they gave her any credit for it, whether they were jerks (and they were) or decent humans (rare, if ever) about freely asking my mother (who had a budget about 1/10 of what most of them worked with) for food (seriously), my mother was there every sunday, with large amounts of food. Why? Because she knew how to take a few dollars, and make them feed lots of people. I share that talent.

Ashleigh and I chatted for at least a couple of hours, in the empty restaurant.

SLAM!

Someone had slammed the door to the basement.

STOMP. STOMP. STOMP.

"You guys should NOT be eating here. The owner is a HORRIBLE man, and exploits his workers." (Side note: turns out she was stealing. How charming, right? The boss is a lovely man, for the record.)

STOMP STOMP STOMP.

She reached the door. She walked out, and slammed the outside door.

The outside door that has one of those hydraulic things that keeps it from slamming.

Made impotent by the uncaring door, the girl kicked the door with all her might, and stormed off. Ashleigh and I looked at each other in stunned silence, and burst out laughing. The waitperson apologised profusely for that particular little scene, and we both let her know that it was too funny /not/ to laugh at.

At the end of the meal, I approached the waitperson, and said, "OK, so it looks like you'll need a new worker."

She asked me to drop off my resume the next day.

The rest, as they say, is history.

What I'm getting at is that I was at the right place at the right time. I was there, because through some weird unconnected events, I was giving of my time and talents to a cause I believed in. They didn't have much money, and had to feed many people on very little money. The food turned out fantastic. Everyone was very impressed that we managed it for such a small amount of money.

Fast forward to a year or two later. Ashleigh called me to place an order for catering from Chow for her SEAL organisation.

I met my darling husband, because I was sitting in a vegan chat room a few years back, and sharing my cooking techniques with people. They would say, "Dino, I've got ____, ____, and ___, and I'm hungry now. Can you tell me what to do with that?" And I would. I'd give them about five or six different options for the stuff they had around the house. Then they'd come back in 30 minutes, and rave about how the food was so good.

Later, when I needed a vegan wallet, and mentioned it in passing (because carrying the leather one was making me a little ill whenever I thought of where it came from), Steve piped up and let me know that he makes wallets, and that he'd be sending me one, for free, "... because you help so many people out in so many ways, and I'm happy to do this for you."

Five years later, that gesture of kindness turned into a marriage that's given me more love and happiness than I could have ever imagined possible. And now that it's legal for us to get married, we've booked the Judson church, where Steve proposed to me (again) on Pride Sunday to ask me to officially marry him.

I said yes.

Onion Sandwiches

I came into the office with my breakfast, and bossman gave me an odd look. "I like onion sandwiches," I said matter-of-factly. He agreed that onion sandwiches are indeed a lovely treat.

My mother used to say that I would take forever to make yoghurt rice (and I still do, with my own home made soy yoghurt that I make every few days). It's significant, because in a South Indian home, yoghurt rice is a very common snack, meal, finish to a meal, whatever. You have it when you want something fast. I liked it with lots of chopped vegetables (tomato, onion, cucumber) and spices (mustard seed, cumin seed, urad daal, toasted in fat) and curry leaves. In other words, yoghurt rice would take me 15 minutes to make, while most people are content with yoghurt + rice, which takes five minutes to make.

I tell you all that to tell you this: my onion sandwiches are no different. I like things just so. First, I liberally rub a baguette with a clove of garlic. This gives the bread a most tempting garlicky taste. I split the bread in half, and fry the cut sides in olive oil over medium-high heat, so that they get a nice crispy crust on the inside, and get pillowy and warm on the outside. This way, when I bite in, the outside is not toasted, but soft and fluffy. While the bread is toasting, I slice off a couple of slices of white (and if I have it, red as well) onions, and salt them. I let them hang out in the salt until they're a little tender. If you slice your onions thinly enough (as you should), they should be salted in about three minutes.

On a warm summer day, it's a most refreshing treat.

Heaaaaaat

It's times like yesterday that I'm eternally grateful to have a well-stocked kitchen. It was hotter than the seven hells yesterday, and I sincerely did not feel like getting into an elaborate cooking thing. I felt like my body was going to melt into a puddle on the floor. I felt my hydration levels dropping ever lower on the walk home. I could feel the throbbing, pulsing heat rising up from the concrete sidewalk, as I manfully marched on, past the people sitting outside, fanning themselves in a futile attempt to battle the pressing humidity and heat.

It's been a few years since we moved up to New York, and it has made me less tolerant of heat in general, but yesterday would have been unbearable by anyone's standards. I got home, and decided on cold noodles. Yes, I would definitely be having rice later on, but for now, I needed to cool myself off.

That morning, I had thrown a piece of kombu (dried kelp) and a small handful of shiitake mushrooms (dried and sliced) into a couple of litres of water. Unlike boiling, this produces a light sort of broth that you can use as a cold soup base. I cooked up a couple of servings of noodles. Somen noodles (the really thin ones) are ideal, but you can use whatever you have. It'll turn out just fine.

I also had a fair bit of kimchi that my brother had sent me home with the last time I visited him in DC. I made a quick sauce with an apple, some sesame oil (just a few drops; a little goes a long way), five or six thai chiles, garlic, ginger, onion, some soy sauce, and some of that kombu broth I'd made. The sauce was spicy and tasty.

Once the noodles were boiled, I rinsed them off under cold running water. I topped them with julienned zucchini, the sauce, some kimchi, some of the water from the kimchi, and the iced broth. It was incredibly refreshing.

What was even more refreshing was the air conditioner. Let's be honest, it really was that hot.

Gay Archie comic

Check it out.

I am very pleased that there's an openly gay character, and that he's getting his own comic. I ordered the first comic he appeared in, as well as the 4 comic run that they're doing for him. I used to read Archie comics as a kid, and I'm thrilled that they're keeping with the times.

Apparently, the response to him has been fantastic. It's the first time they've had to order a reprint of any issue of the comics. I really wish that there were gay or lesbian characters, and that their lives were portrayed as normal, just like everyone else's. I don't know that it would have made anything easier in my particular situation, but I think that it would have been nice to know that I'm not weird.

Colour me surprised and happy.

Me & my Nephew

This is me with my nephew, Vinayak on his birthday. Just thought I'd share a happy moment for all of you.

Corn Chowder

I was making a corn chowder yesterday, and I didn't want for it to have heinous amounts of fat, nor did I want to throw in starch (like wheat starch, corn starch, etc), because it doesn't really add much to the party with regards to flavour or nutrition. Interestingly enough, I was just talking to my mother over the weekend about how the cost of coconut milk has skyrocketed, and how it's getting prohibitively expensive.

Then, I started to do some digging. Every site that I see promoting silken tofu says that you can use the pureed stuff in cream soups, but then leaves it at that. Does that mean that you puree it, and then dump in a bunch of it? Do you puree it in the food processor, and use it as a thick creamy thing, or do you puree it in the blender, and let 'er rip with a bit of liquid of your choice, and stir it in? Can you cook it down, or should it be relatively uncooked? How about freezing or thawing or boiling or all kinds of other considerations? How much should you use?

First and foremost, let me make one thing clear: you don't /have/ to use silken tofu. You can, if that's what you have, but if you don't have any, or don't feel like tracking any down, just use whatever tofu you have lying around in the house, or whatever is cheapest at your market. You're throwing this into the blender to blend down to an absolute puree, so it doesn't really matter.

I'm just sick of all these recipes demanding that you use a particular thing, when it's not even necessary. Y'know, like those ones that ask you to use MELTED MARGARINE.* What is melted margarine? OIL. So why not use oil? It's infuriating. In the same way, since you're going to be blending the heck out of it anyway, just use whatever you have, and the heck with what everyone tells you to do.

Secondly, remember that tofu, when frozen, changes texture. This goes for pureed tofu, but far less so than for fresh tofu. This means that if you are going to be using tofu to replace cream, please use exactly however much you need, and use it up. Don't use frozen tofu. I wish that I didn't have to make this distinction, but I do, because not everyone is familiar with the stuff, and won't know not to do so.

Finally, if you are going to be using extra firm, or firm tofu, please don't cook it too terribly much. If you've ever had tofu that's been put into miso soup, and sat there, you'll know that the texture changes completely. For the best results, keep your tofu cream aside, and stir it in just before serving, or at the last minute to the pot of soup. If you do have silken tofu, and you grind it, you'll have more leeway to work with to make the magic happen.

How about the ratios? How much tofu to how much liquid?

Here's the exciting part. Yesterday, for two cups of coconut milk, I used about four pounds of tofu! Two cups is about the standard size of coconut milk can that you see in the store. This means that the coconut milk that you bought for however much can be stretched out with tofu and water to make far more than what you started with. To scale this back, it works out to about 1/2 cup of coconut milk per pound of tofu. This should provide you with enough cream to stir into a pretty decent sized pot of soup. This also means that you can scale this down further. You can use 1/2 lb of tofu for 1/4 cup of coconut milk, or 1/4 lb of tofu for 2 TB of coconut milk.

This means that people with less than normal food processors, or blenders (I'm looking at you, people with mini choppers who use them as food processors*) can still do the job, because you can scale down as far as you need to or scale up as needed.

So. Recipe time, right?

Corn Chowder

1 tsp canola, peanut, or olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped finely
1 1/2 tsp thyme
2 medium potatoes, diced
2 ears of corn, taken off the cob
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper (or, lots more if you're like me and love black pepper in chowder)
2 cups of water

Tofu cream
2 TB coconut milk
1/4 lb tofu

In a stock pot, sautee the onions over medium high heat until they become translucent. Add the thyme in with the onions, and stir everything around until the herbs are evenly distributed with the onions and the fat. You do this so that the essential oils from the thyme have a chance to release their flavours efficiently.

While the onion cooks, chop up the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes. Since there's only two potatoes, you should be able to do this relatively quickly, even if you're a slow chopper. When the onions are cooked, add the diced potatoes, and stir the veggies around in the pot until everything is evenly combined. Drop down the heat to medium low, and put the lid onto the pot. While that hangs out and cooks slowly, take the kernels of corn off of the cob. When the potatoes have cooked for 7 minutes in the pot, add the corn, water, salt, and black pepper. Increase the heat to medium high again.

While the water comes up to the boil, combine the coconut milk and tofu in a blender. Blend until the tofu is pureed smooth. Add water (from the soup pot) to thin out the tofu cream, until it resembles the consistency of a thick heavy cream. Turn off the heat once the potatoes are tender. Let the whole thing sit for about five minutes to cool a bit. Stir in the cream, and serve immediately, with a rain of lovely freshly ground black pepper, chives, or soup crackers, as suits your fancy.

---

The reason that I'm a fan of using tofu instead of all coconut milk is twofold: for one thing, the tofu adds protein to the mix. Yes, I am well aware that the coconut milk, corn, and potatoes all contain protein of their own. However, the tofu does have a good fair bit of concentrated protein that will boost up the whole thing. Also, the tofu means that I can reduce the amount of fat that I'm using. In the past, for a recipe like this, I would have cheerfully used 1/2 cup of coconut milk. I've managed to cut back on the coconut milk drastically, and still keep that rich, creamy texture that I like. I've also not gone off the deep end to the other extreme, where I'm afraid of fat. Coconut milk and olive oil/canola oil/peanut oil are healthy fats. When used in moderation, they're good for the body, and help absorb fat-soluble vitamins. They are a vital part of your diet. While you don't want to overdo them, you also don't want to avoid them completely.

Besides. Fat tastes good. Just because I'm eating healthy doesn't mean that I have to eat like I'm sick, right? I can still enjoy the things I like while making minor substitutions which improve the overall food, while not going to any extremes. I hope you will also agree with me, and give the recipe a try! Corn chowder is absolutely delicious, and the perfect way to use up all that lovely corn that's coming into season.

*For the record, I'm using these lines in a humorous fashion. It's not meant to offend, or to seriously call into question how people like things, or do things. Sometimes, in the written word, the tone is not always clear. Let me make it clear now that it's meant to be taken in a jokey manner, and not in a ranty manner.

I was reading a forum post somewhere, where a person off-handedly mentioned being gay in a small town in the USA. Let me preface this with a couple of disclaimers: I have never (and will never, gods willing) lived in a truly small town where I was old enough to know or care. I've never had to deal with an entire large group of random strangers who know all of my business (shut up, the Internet doesn't count) who I'm meeting on a regular basis.

Steve, however, did. Whenever we go out with his dad, there are bound to be at least two or three families out and around who recognise not only him, but (by extension) Steve as well, and in many cases, me. It's eerie. The next door neighbours at his father's house know me as one of his mother's son-in-laws, and will stop over for a chat if I'm outside and they're outside at the same time. It's eerie, and unsettling, because I have no clue who these people are, but they seem to know all about me.

Again, I'm reinforcing this with the fact that I don't have to live there, and any interactions I've had with folk out there have been friendly, warm, loving, and kind.

I find that in smaller towns, folk aren't as hateful as you would think that they are. Yes, you have hateful people in the churches who preach more of their brand of loathsome dogma, but you also have plenty of good decent people who are happy to let you get on with your life, as long as you let them get on with theirs. These are the same people who vote republican on the ballots, and are generally conservative.

However, I call myself a liberal, or moderate, or whatever, not because I have a fundamental understanding of how I vote, but rather because that's where my life and the conclusions I've drawn have lead me over the years. I didn't vote for Obama because I knew where he stood on all the issues that matter to me. I voted for him because people I care about, and whose opinions I respect deeply asked me to vote for him.

Huh. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

You see, I'm not trying to make myself sound like an idiot. I'm not. I'm intelligent. I am college educated. I enjoy reading, and learning new things. However, I am also able to be honest with myself, and that's what I'm doing right now: being strictly honest.

So why is it that I look with derision on folks who do the same thing that I did? They don't vote one way because they necessarily understand what all the implications of voting that way are. They do it because people that they love and whose opinions they respect are telling them to.

However, in interacting with the very same people (like me) whose rights they are restricting with their voting, the interaction totally becomes an "in the moment" experience, where two people share of themselves in a way that leaves both parties in a better place than when they started.

For the record, there is absolutely no doubt that I'm gay. You'd have to be outright ignorant of what being gay means to miss that glaringly obvious fact. The fact becomes even more glaring when I'm travelling with Steve, which I do frequently. However, in the small towns that Steve and I have visited (including the suburban towns that are largely conservative), we have been treated with kindness and warmth.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that to make any perceptible change in the world, we need to live our truth. Whether this be about being gay, being vegan, being a person of character, or whatever, living in your truth is about the most valuable thing you can do to propagate it.

If you're out there yelling at people that they are wrong, and horrible, you're going to end up alienating them, and will have very few people who want to be in your presence. If you firmly and matter-of-factly state your truth ("I'm gay," I'm vegan," etc), people have the chance to get to know you, and see that your day-to-day life is really no different from their own. The threatening part of the unknown "other" starts to fade away, and people start to see each other as people.

Let me finish this off by saying that I don't want to move to a small town. That's really not something that would work for my more fast-paced lifestyle that I enjoy having. I'm also not trying to deny the absence of hateful bigots. Those will be anywhere you go, and in a big city, it's easier to ignore them, because there are so many other voices to drown them out. There's a reason that so many gay kids flee to large metropolitan cities.

However, I am saying that it'd be nice to avoid lumping all people from a particular walk of life into one category, and deciding that they're all worthless. At the end of the day, we're all people, and we have value. When you give people a chance, you're often surprised at the goodness and kindness inherent in humanity that comes out. It doesn't help anyone to demonise the "other side".

Onion Samosa

1 onion, 1 bunch of cilantro, 5 Thai Bird chiles, 5 cm of ginger, 5 cloves garlic. Turmeric, salt, ajwain, coriander, cumin, garam masala. 1 1/2 cups of poha.

National Geographic

I remember spending hours watching National Geographic documentaries. This was back in the day when you had the local PBS stations carrying a good selection of documentaries, and they'd advertise a particularly cool one, and you'd wait for it to come out. Then they'd re-air it a few more times before the next round of awesome footage came out. I remember listening to the theme song for the National Geographic documentaries, and would likely recognise it immediately.

And then I saw this comment on the video:

FINALLY FOUND IT! EVER SINCE MADAGASCAR CAME OUT I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THIS SONG!!!!! THE NAME OF IT (The chase scene, right after Alex becomes 'wild' and chases Marty for the first time)

That makes me sad. I hope that discovering what the song is will encourage the person to go seek out the work that National Geographic has done. The magazines are still some of the coolest things ever. They're printed in such high quality paper that people hold onto them for years, as they would any sort of book.

I talk frequently (in life, on my blog, etc) about popping spices, adding aromatics, then tomatoes, then dry spices, etc to make a rough gravy, then adding veg, beans, or whatever. This video does a top-notch job of showing, in video, the exact steps, and how it works, from adding the oil, to adding the mustard seeds, the urad daal, etc etc. OK, it's in Malayalam. I don't speak Malayalam either. I speak Tamil. (Granted, the two languages are extremely similar, so I can more or less follow her, but the point is that the /video/ is excellent.) Essentially, she starts with a couple tablespoons of oil, a few healthy pinches of mustard seeds, and urad daal. Notice how she waits for the seeds to pop and splutter before adding anything. That's how you know that the oil is hot enough to pop the mustard seeds. If the mustard seeds don't pop, the flavour doesn't come out.

All the other steps are pretty straightforward from there. If you're interested in any kind of South Indian cooking, watch the video, and just take notice of the technique. Also, the Keralites make the best food in India (sorry, Amma; we both know it's true--anyone who uses that much coconut every day has my vote), hands down, and I'm not even /from/ that state. She's got solid technique, and a charming personality. She was suggesting a few times (as a Keralite would) that you could quite happily add grated coconut, coconut milk, etc. Anything you say, Ms. Nair. <3

In this particular video, she's showing you how to use up leftover idli to make a sort of curried idli masala thingy.

That white powder she uses (aside from the salt) that she calls "Kaya Podi" is dried banana powder, which is another very typical Keralite thing.

Picky eating revisited

The last time we talked about my picky eating habits, we were tackling bell peppers, and my sister-in-law's treatment of such, with the multiple peppers, corn, and black bean salad (called, in my house, "Deb's Salad", even when I warp it out of all recognition of her original, such as adding her most dreaded food: tomatoes), which taught me to not only tolerate, but enjoy red, yellow, and orange bell peppers. It's a feat I thought I'd never conquer, and I'm pretty happy that I am now open to this new thing that I never liked as a kid.

If people can acquire a taste for stuff like beer, which is not exactly health food, I can learn to like the multiple vegetables I've thus far deemed horrible.

Now that I've tackled peppers, I think I'm ready for aubergines. While I was visiting my friend Jamie's mum in upstate NY, there were more vegetables than I could count! They were all of excellent quality, and in abundance. Jamie commented that seeing the dinner table was like a Thanksgiving meal, with all the varieties. It really was most enjoyable.

Anyway. Her fiancee grilled the whole baby aubergines (each was the size of a small fist, but long too). They had no seeds to speak of. they were also firm to the touch when we started, and tender and juicy when finished. He served them with nothing more than a smear of tahini. That was it. No lemon juice, no herbs, no garlic, no nothing else. Just the aubergine with a bit of tahini. I liberally dosed mine with some salt, but neither he nor Jamie bothered with it. They enjoyed it as is.

It was quite tasty. The grilling brought out something different (there was apple wood in the smoking part of the grill) that regular roasting or frying doesn't quite do. The texture wasn't as slimy as I recall it being. Instead, it was cooked while retaining just a hint of firmness. And the tahini was absolutely the best complement to it ever.

I only ate one, but I think that I can bring myself to try more, as time goes on. Again, I'm not trying to rush at this, and get myself to like everything all the time, but am working, slowly but surely, at growing an appreciation for the plant kingdom.

EDIT: Here's something else I never saw myself doing: eating carrots by itself. Martha Stewart's carrot salad did the trick:

http://www.wholeliving.com/recipe/moroccan-carrot-salad

Quiet

It's not often that I get to have a moment of absolute quiet. Ever since moving to New York all those years ago, it's been a constant state of something going on. Even when visiting my sister in what I /thought/ was far removed from major cities, there were still noises around. This night, however, is truly quiet.

I'm at the (beautiful) home of one of my friend's mother's. She lives up a mountain road, about 15 minutes away from paved roads, in a very small town in upstate New York. I never thought I'd be this far out into the country, but here I am. No cell reception, no subway access two feet away, and thunder and lightning rumbling off in the distance.

The last time I experienced this was when I was taking that trip off into the Galapagos Islands. In the middle of the water, you would have these moments of absolute peace and quiet. Nobody was awake, and the only noise going on was the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat.

That's what's going on here. Aside from the occasional cricket chirping, or the bullfrogs croaking, the entire place is quiet. I can hear the faint rumblings of thunder off in the distance, and it's kind of nice.

Mind you, I don't plan on making this a habit. Being too far from a subway makes me nervous. However, once in 10 years or so, It's nice to really get away from it all, and sit by the giant windows, and watch the storm roll in. It's going to be a beautiful night.

Amma

Amma, in tamil, means mother. It’s what I call my mother, and because my friends didn’t realise that “amma” is just our word for mother (or, quite possibly, because they realised it), they ended up calling my mother by “Amma” as well. I think that it secretly pleased her, because she never bothered to correct it.

Amma tells me stories about how when I was young, I would constantly have her in my line of sight somewhere, and keep a peripheral ear out for what she was talking about. I actually know what she’s talking about, because there are multiple occasions when she thought I was playing with my friends, and I’d quote what one of her friends was saying. Whether it be because she spent the most time and effort on her pregnancy and childhood with me out of all her children (or so I like to think so; she would drink a large tumbler of grass juice every morning to ensure healthy milk for me, and that’s just one sliver of the things she would do to make sure I got only the best of the best of everything), or because of all her children, I think I have had a relationship with her as a peer as well as a son, I am truly her son. She never addressed me with things like “You’ll do so because I said so,” or “You wouldn’t understand.” She taught me from a very young age that if you ask, you’ll eventually find an answer. Maybe not immediately right at that moment, but to trust her that she’d come back to me with an answer that was considered and thought out.

It was like when I asked her why we’re vegetarian. She explained that it was because in our culture and family, that’s just what we did. I wasn’t satisfied with that answer, and she admitted that she had never really thought about it. Over time, however, she took me to vegetarian potlucks, and introduced me to various vegan and vegetarian activists, who did have a more cleanly articulated line of thinking for leaving the animals alone. Although she didn’t give me the answer as soon as I asked it, she lead me to find it on my own.

That’s the other thing. She never dismissed any of my questions as trivial. She somehow knew that I’m one of those people who considers, and reads, and looks for it on his own before having to ask her or anyone else. I remember one summer when I decided to read the as many of the Hindu scriptures as possible. We had multiple copies of multiple books around, and I had the spare time to do it. I stumbled across something discussing the four Yugas (divisions of Hindu mythological history). I knew we are living in the Kali yuga, but I didn’t know how far along we are, or how long each one is. She admitted that she didn’t know, but that she would find out if she could. A day or so later, she came back to me and explained that she had called a priest at the temple, and asked him. He gave her the exact breakdown in years, and she jotted them down for me. Most people would have left it at “I don’t know.”

She fostered my love for being in the kitchen. When you’re feeding a family of six, you’re going to end up spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Since that’s where she was, I’d go hang out with her there. She’d then assign me some small task, and the two of us would keep talking, while working on the meal. Over time, she grew to trust me enough to handle entire dishes, or in some cases, the whole dinner, for when guests came over. She would openly brag to her friends that her son is not only well read, can keep conversations with people much older than himself, and didn’t watch junky TV as much as he watched nature documentaries and the like, but he is also a talented cook, who is comfortable in the kitchen, and is happy to help her. The other mothers would turn green with envy, thinking of the hours they’d spend alone in the kitchen.

She values my opinion. When we get the chance to chat on the phone, the conversation often stretches from a few minutes, and a quick question, into a marathon session for a couple of hours at a stretch. Mind you, she’s the type of person who will take multiple viewpoints, and eventually come to her own decision, after thinking it over for a while, but I know that she gives what I have to say a lot of weight in the grand scheme of things. When she was skirting the edges of menopause, I went out and read every book, journal article and website I could get my hands on, and distill it down into a conversation about what’s going on and how to cope with it. She’s always been so proud of that ability of mine. I enjoy reading things that teach me something new, and I enjoy talking about what I’ve learned.

I remember one night, she listened to me rambling on about some of the reading that I had done about language development in children, when she was nervous about my sister’s son’s speech. He didn’t start talking as soon as she’d seen other children talking. (For the record, this is no longer an issue; the trick is to get him to stop talking! He’s too cute for words, and speaks clearly and at length.) I don’t know how long I chattered on about it, but she patiently listened to it, with only the occasional diversion or question.

I can talk to her about nothing at all, or everything, and both of us enjoy it. We joke that whoever is responsible for wire tapping my phone must be ready to end it all, because we have the most boring, mundane conversations. Frequent (and I mean close to half the call) topics include the cost of rice, vegetables, and the sales we got at the various stroes we shop at. Then, we talk about what we made with the things we bought. I’m seriously not joking. Then, in between, there will be some philosophical discussion about human nature, or a quick story about what her grandson did that day, or how Steve did something else.

She taught me that the best seasoning for food is having people you enjoy being around to share it with. That food is at its most powerful when it’s shared with as many people as possible. That the value you give something is far more important than its cost. (Actually, come to think of it, the value of something is often increased exponentially with how little it cost. I made her this ugly, lumpy bowl in art class in 6th grade. She kept it for years to hold her pens. I think she still has it somewhere, still holding pens.)

She reinforced, time and again, that no problem is too big or scary to talk through. That the way to get around things is to talk it out. That literally /no/ trouble her children get themselves into is too great to get past, and move on from. Steve came into our lives five years ago. He came suddenly, and without discussion. “How was your summer, Dinu?” “It was great. I got married.” (This is after they got back from being in India for a year.) “Oh. That’s great. What’s her name.” “His name is Steve.”

A couple of weeks later, Steve moved in. All four of us lived together for a year. I’m not sure what acceptance means to others, but having your gay husband living with the family, and introducing the both of us to their friends looks quite accepting to me. No, she’s not marching in a parade, but that’s likely because it’s hotter than the nine hells in June, and her feet would start throbbing within the first mile or so. Yes, we had our problems, but living with someone else is always going to present problems. If I were to see Steve’s family on a daily basis for a year, I’m sure stuff would likely come up that would test the limits of all of our patience. The fact that we’re all still on good terms (good enough terms, that is, that Steve even made a trip or two up to Connecticut to visit with my sister, her husband, and my parents without me) is a lasting testament to that acceptance.

She’s very proud of all my talents, but won’t hesitate to call me on it when she thinks that I’m being an idiot. When Amma and Appa (Appa = father in Tamil) moved up to Connecticut to help my sister settle in, they left Steve and me back at the Florida house. Steve and I lasted about four or five months before giving up on the entire state, and heading for the hills. And by hills, I mean New York. The whole thing was decided and orchestrated in the space or a month. Amma was furious and hurt, not that I was moving, but that I hadn’t said anything until it was too late. Even then, she still kept a couple of her friends on standby, in case we needed a couple of days to land somewhere before finding an apartment. “If you had said something, I could have helped make this so much easier on you. Why did you think you couldn’t talk this over with me?” She always said that she had no illusions about anyone in her life. She saw, and accepted, the good and the bad. It’s why people trust her to give them honest feedback. She doesn’t give empty compliments. If she says something is good, it’s because it’s good. If she says something can use some work, you take that into account, and fix it for the next time.

She taught me, through her actions, that the only person who can stop you from success is yourself. Let everyone else say what they want to say. You just keep your head down, and keep at it. When I was about ten years old, Hurrican Andrew hit Florida, and ravaged Miami. All the apartments that were left over were now going for premium prices. If I’m not mistaken, our landlord wanted to bump up rent after the hurricane, and my mother didn’t think it was feasible for a family of six to live in a three bedroom apartment. She wanted a house.

At the time, my father was pulling in minimum wage. This meant that any house my mother would be looking at had to be, above all else, affordable. The bank wouldn’t approve a loan to someone who doesn’t have the physical money to pay for. Amma worked as a homemaker, and Appa worked at an office. Her requirements were that the house be larger than our apartment, have more than 3 bedrooms, have at least 2 bathrooms, have a decent sized kitchen, be in a decent school district, be in a decent neighbourhood, and be priced at less than $80,000, give or take. Bonus points for being near major highways, and near the Hindu temple. Mind you, this was 1992, but we’re still talking about a state, that in those days, was getting about 700 new people in it every day (stat I learned in summer school of 7th grade). To say that it’d be challenging to meet all her goals is an understatement.

Most of the people we knew at the time thought that she’s completely nuts. It took a lot of searching. She spent hours with realtors, looking at ugly tiny house after ugly tiny house. Some would be fairly decent sized, and in OK repair, but be in horrible neighbourhoods. Others would be townhouses, or in developments, which would mean freakishly strict and intrusive rules (like no clothes lines, or no planting fruit trees in your own yard), along with hefty association fees, paid to a bunch of jerks who didn’t really do much of anything, except to enforce said arbitrary and intrusive rules. Others would be almost ideal, but situated in neighbourhoods that were one inch away from mob rule. You know all those bizarre news stories coming out of Florida? That’s because we have more than its share of crazies. Pair all of this with everyone she knew telling her to relax her standards, or her pocket book. She flatly refused, and kept at it.

The kicker? She didn’t drive. She had a learner’s permit, but didn’t actually drive herself until well after we moved into the house. Also, she couldn’t exactly afford a babysitter to watch after the kids, and my dad didn’t get home until fairly late anyway. Also, first Saturday of every month was a bhajan group that she attended for years, and wouldn’t think of missing. Also, every Sunday was temple day. She’d arrive (along with family in tow) well before everyone else got there, and leave well after the last stragglers left. This is also paired with random Saturdays being given up for religious events, weddings, birthdays, and all kinds of cultural and social events. Oh. While we’re mentioning things: she also would cook for pretty much every event/function we’d go to. She’d cook /every/ Sunday, in large quantity, to comfortably feed the 100 or so people that could show up to the temple.

I don’t even recall how she managed to find that house that she eventually bought, but she did. She got the house, and held a housewarming that had well over 120 people or so. (Life is funny though. Both my brothers moved out, leaving an extra bedroom. My sister and I both went to Magnet schools, so the local school district was moot. A short time after moving up, we stopped going to the Hindu temple, because 99% of the people there were [and still are] snobby, classist, small minded, back stabbing, gossiping, loathsome jerks.) Fifteen years later, she paid off the mortgage in full, and owned it outright.

Our relationship was never perfect. We’ve both managed to hurt the other. However, I don’t know of any relationship that I have with anyone, that doesn’t involve some level of challenge at some point. That’s just how people are. The important thing is that we do still seek each other out, however infrequently, because we both really do value the other person.

Thanks, Amma. I love you.

KISS

Simplicity. It’s often difficult to achieve without considerable editing down. I’ve recently begun to take a serious look at my cooking, and wonder if sometimes I have the opportunity to improve myself by subtracting, rather than adding anything. I should certainly know better, having my pretty strong background in design. If you look at my website, or the website that I created for my work place, both share a couple of elements: few colours, few fonts, ease of use, and fairly stripped down looks.

It’s kind of how I like things to look. I want to see the most important thing, not all the sidebar stuff that can distract from the main point.

We had a photo shoot at the restaurant, so that I could get decent pictures of the food to either use on the website, or to use in various promotional materials, etc. The first round of photos was an unalloyed disaster. Everything had great masses of parsley on it, about 100 different elements on the plate, along with good, strong lighting. I went through to do some colour correction, light balancing, and the rest on the photos, so that I could bring up the most important colours, and mute the ones I’m not so interested in. The effect was a lurid mix of day glow neons, and just overall messy presentation.

I asked the photographer to try it all again. This time, each thing needed to be shot with /absolutely nothing/ extraneous. Take out the parsley chunks, take out the flotsam and jetsam, and give me something stripped down to its most bass level. The pictures were so gloriously beautiful that second time around. Mind you, the photographer was the same person. She used the same camera, same settings, same flash. The difference was the presentation.

This is kind of where I’m starting to lead myself in the pursuit of improving myself. Generally, a typical veg cooked in my kitchen at home involves all kinds of things. I start with oil, often mixing different kinds. I like a blend of peanut and sesame, because I really like the smell. Sometimes I’ll throw in a bit of coconut for that extra special smell. Then, in with the spices. Typical run for me is mustard seed, cumin seed, asafetida, and sesame seed. Sometimes I also throw in a bit of crushed coriander.

Then, in with the aromatics. I generally use garlic, onion, and ginger. Because I like to vary the taste of the garlic, I’ll add it at various stages of cooking, but I have recently fallen in love with frying the garlic first, then throwing in the onion. As of late, because I realized I don’t hate them anymore, I’ve also taken to throwing in some bell pepper. The smells by this point are intoxicating, and delicious. You can generally smell my cooking as you walk up the stairs that lead to my apartment.

Then, I add the vegetable, along with a bit of turmeric, and red chile flakes. Once the vegetable is cooked, I’ll finish it off with curry leaves, and a bit of salt.

By now, I’ve lost count of the amount of ingredients that have gone in there. If it’s beans, you’re also talking about the addition of a few tomatoes, possibly some tomato paste, and wine or vodka. If it’s a soup or stew, also add in some carrots, celery, potatoes, etc. Before too long, the dish is a teetering mass of ingredients. All of them are delicious, and the food is fantastic. It’s earthy, and homey, and you eat more than is decent, because it’s hitting all the good spots.

However, I have begun to wonder if I’m tasting the food, or the spices.

When I quit smoking, my sense of smell got a little sharper, and I was able to taste things more clearly. Things that I previously liked have become a chore to eat. I absolutely cannot bring myself to choke down a bowl of ramen soup. It’s awful. I’ve discovered that I love the smell of bell peppers cooking, along with onions and garlic. This has made it possible for me to eat, and enjoy them. I haven’t eaten bell peppers in so long that I can’t even count. My poor husband is so used to eating with me, and my piling his plate with various things I decided I don’t like.

What I am trying to get at is that of late, I’ve been experimenting with really stripped down food. It’s not something that I’m used to doing, but I decided to give it a try.

On Thursday, when I got home, there were two heads of cauliflower, six pounds of eggplant, and a large bunch of collard greens. Typically, the whole meal would have taken me about an hour to put together, all of which would have been spent with me stood over the cutting board or the stove. I would have gleefully moved around my tiny kitchen, making all four burners go at full tilt, while balancing all kinds of vessels on various surfaces. Tonight, I was going to dial it all back big time.

I cranked up the gas oven to 350 F. In went the eggplant, on baking sheets, unadorned. I didn’t cut them, rub on oil, or anything else. I just lay them on the baking sheet whole, and put them in the oven. Then, I made rough florets of the cauliflower. This took me less than a couple of minutes. I drizzled on a bit of vegetable oil, and threw that in the oven as well. I set the timer for 1 hour, and set a pot of water on the stove. I chopped up the collard greens roughly, and let them sit there. I made a small pouch of foil for two heads of garlic (which I doused in more oil). Into the oven they went. The water came to a boil. I turned off the heat, and plunged the collard greens into the water. I let it sit for about a minute. I drained off the water. Then, I tossed the greens in sesame oil, black sesame seeds, and salt.

That’s it.

I walked out of the kitchen, and got into my house clothes. I watched some TV for about 45 minutes or so, while the oven did my work for me. When the timer beeped, I came back to the kitchen to see the cauliflower perfectly roasted, the garlic tender and smelling great, and the eggplants collapsed from getting cooked so thoroughly.

I scooped out the flesh of the eggplant, and dumped in both heads of garlic, a bit of salt, and the roasting oil from the garlic foil pouch. I also threw in some red chile flakes. I stirred vigorously with a wooden spoon, until the eggplant were sort of shredded.

That’s it.

The cauliflower got some salt.

That meal was memorable. For the first time in a long time, I tasted the vegetables, as they were. Mind you, I didn’t touch the eggplant, because I don’t care for their texture. One thing at a time, right? I’ll get there when I get there.

What I’m getting at is that it was a lot of fun for me to try something that I haven’t done before. It wasn’t bland at all. The roasting gave the vegetables plenty of flavor and colour and texture. The oil and a bit of salt really brought out the natural taste. It was a revelation.

Next time though, I think I’ll add a bit of cumin to the eggplant.

And maybe tahini.

And lemon.

Just saying.

Tummy clear up

I ate stuff that I really shouldn't eat (fatty, starchy, horrible, but tasty) last night before bed, and this morning, my brown rice and steamed broccoli loving tummy let me know in no uncertain terms, that he is unimpressed. He also let me know that if I try that again, he's going on strike. Ouch!

I wanted something to settle my stomach, and didn't feel like going to the drug store to get medication (which probably wouldn't have done that much for me anyway). I decided on a juice. I know that ginger is really good for settling upset stomachs, among a million other things it's good for. In went about two inches of ginger. I know that kale and other dark leafy greens are alkaline, and will counteract the strong stomach acids that are likely causing the upset in the first place, so I threw in a few leaves, along with the stems, of kale. I know I really dislike the taste of juiced greens, so in went a couple of apples, and five or six carrots too. I didn't care for the colour, so I threw in a small beet for good measure.

I could feel it work immediately. My stomach isn't completely settled yet, but I can smell things without feeling nauseous. Good to know for the future.

Cold dinner

Last night, it was warm, and late. By the time I got home, it was 8:30, and I was exhausted from work. And the kitchen was messy, as was the bathroom. Ugh. I attacked everything, and got it all sorted by about 9:15. I was still hungry, but didn't really feel like cooking per se.

While I was in Chicago with Steve's family for Easter, his sister's wife Debbie made this fantastic salsa that everyone absolutely loved to bits. I especially liked it, so I commandeered the leftovers and ate it. "Ate it with tortilla chips", you may ask. I ate it with a spoon.

And I don't even like bell peppers. In fact, I absolutely hate bell peppers. Correction: I absolutely hatED bell peppers until I started my campaign of not being so stupidly finicky about everything. My eldest brother made this eggplant dish, for which I completely forgot to ask for the recipe for whatever reason, which was quite lovely over rice. Essentially, it was very heavily salted eggplant, fried in spices and such, so that it almost became like an Indian pickle. It was so good, but it was also an isolated incident. I'm not sure that I can clear my textural issues around eggplant quite yet, but hope springs eternal.

The bell peppers in Debbie's salsa, however, have a subtle sweetness that was accentuated by the corn. I didn't feel like I was eating bell peppers at all, and I happily chomped away at them. I don't know that I'll start seeking them out, but I think I've made my peace with the multi coloured peppers. Green bells are a different story for another day. Maybe if anyone is interested, I'll share my recipe for cumin bell peppers which work excellently as a side veg for those who enjoy green bell peppers.

Anyway. I digress. When I got home, I made sure to bug Debbie via the Internet to remind me of what all she put into that salsa. Here's what she said:

Need 1 can sweet corn, 1 can black beans (rinsed and drained) 1 purple onion, any or all colors of peppers (green, red, yellow), jalepeno pepper (good part is you can make it as hot as you want and leave the seeds in), 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup lime juice, 1 tsp cumin and 1 tsp cayenne. whisk liquid together with spices and pour over veggies; put in the fridge for a couple hours and serve with tortilla chips and enjoy!

Easy enough! What you'll notice immediately is that the riot of colour makes it extremely appetising. A couple of things to note. For one thing, don't think that you have to make this in enormous quantities. If you do, you'll end up with an enormous grocery bill. Make just about what you and your family can eat in one sitting, and you'll be fine. Yellow peppers, red peppers, and orange peppers can get freakishly expensive. If you buy just one, it shouldn't amount to very much money. I don't think that this will work with green bell peppers, because they're way too bitter, and would be jarring in comparison to the other, nicer flavours.

Another thing to note is that this is an excellent place to get other vegetables and herbs that you like. I threw in one tomato, a cucumber, and an avocado, as well as a bunch of cilantro, because I like those things. I didn't use lime juice (having forgotten to buy lemon), but I hit it with some citric acid, and it did the job. Also, I didn't have olive oil, so I used a couple tablespoons of canola oil. Yes, I left the seeds in the one jalapeño chile I used.

I was exhausted, so it took me the entire 9 minutes that my pasta was boiling to finish chopping up all the veggies. However, since I wasn't exactly doing anything else while the pasta was boiling, it's not like I had to spend extra time in the kitchen. When the pasta was done, I drained it, and rinsed it under cold water. This was both to cool it down very quickly, and to prevent it from cooking much more. One of the most awful things about pasta salad is when the pasta is overcooked.

For my one pound of pasta, I had an enormous quantity of fresh, raw vegetables, making the dinner quite healthy and tasty. Because I didn't shake off too terribly much of the liquid from the draining pasta, the liquid combined with the seasonings and oil in the vegetables, and was quite refreshing on that warm night. The total put together time was about fifteen minutes, making it a meal I will most likely make again. I'll just need to find tinned black beans and tinned corn on sale somewhere, and keep a few in my pantry, so that I can avoid the extra steps of making those things fresh. The charm of Debbie's Salsa is that it's incredibly quick.

“It’s fine if you’re gay; just don’t flaunt it in front of me.” In that case, please extend the same courtesy to me. Otherwise, you’re holding me to an arbitrary double standard.

Don’t flaunt being straight to me. Don’t mention your significant other in loving terms in front of me. Don’t call that person your lover. Don’t fill your songs, books, movies, mythology, and stories with any mention of the loving and tender feelings between a man and a woman. Don’t build religious institutions that actively promote the heterosexual lifestyle. Don’t create thinly veiled hate groups, that masquerade as religious groups, which get tax benefits.

Don’t ever call your lover by a term of endearment. Don’t hold their hands. Don’t give them a hug to comfort them when they’re sad, to show them that you love them, to express joy at seeing them.

Don’t make the assumption that everyone is straight.

Who was doing that flaunting? I know it's not me.

Dino needs a brand new bag

Yesterday, on the way home from Port Authority, I had to use the restroom, and we were on a local train (the A) which is notorious for dragging behind on the way uptown. It just got worse and worse. To distract myself, I started thinking about the problem that Steve and I have: we both need new laptop backpacks. Let me explain myself.

On 20 July 2008, I bought this bag. It's become such a part of my life that pretty much everyone who's seen me has seen me (and Steve) with that bag. Why? Because back in those days, to prevent either of us getting jealous of the other's things (a stupid concern, seeing as how we freely borrow each other's things [with permission, which is always granted] all the time), I would frequently buy things in duplicate: one for me, and one for him. This does not apply to clothes, because we share our whole wardrobe. Except my red shoes. Nobody touches my red shoes.

I digress.

Point is that I bought one for Steve first, because he needed it the most. He was commuting the better part of 1 1/2 hours both ways to work at the time. He needed something to hold his 15" laptop, along with a few other extras. I wanted something that was sleek and stylish, and wouldn't look like a nerdpack growing out of his back. I didn't want a messenger bag, because (1) he already had one or two, and (2) for holding heavy things, like a laptop, for extended times, a backpack spreads out the weight much better than a messenger bag. There comes a point where style becomes bad for your body, and that's where I draw the line. If it's going to cause physical discomfort or pain, I don't want to bother with it, because then it's no longer a pleasure to own that thing.

Anyway. Both of us use our bags fairly frequently, and somewhat roughly. They get thrown in all directions, and both of us, being fairly attached to our electronics, tend to take our backpacks with us everywhere. Here are a couple of reasons why our current bags are so good:

1) When travelling by bus for long distances (generally, greyhound to DC), the bag fits very neatly under the seat, fully packed. This means not having to toss it in overhead or checked baggage. This applies for flights as well. It fits so neatly that no matter how cramped the under the seat storage is (Greyhound bus, subway, city bus, plane, Metro North train, etc), I can still slide my bag into it.

2) It looks really good. Even after (almost) three years of heavy, constant use, it still looks pretty nice. I've never had to throw it in the wash, so I'm not sure how it'd deal with it.

3) It sits sleekly on my back. This means that when I turn around in a crowded subway, I don't knock people over. Larger bags tend to do that, and all you need is one guy who's had a bad day to make the value of this bag unspeakably priceless.

4) It fits a /lot/. My macbook pro, laptop charger, wallet, phone, ipod, phone charger, ipod charger, wireless headphones, wireless headphones charger, work/home/friend's keys, 20 oz bottle of water, salt shaker, food for one meal, roll of yarn (and a crochet hook), a paperback novel, and CD wallet (into which I'd packed a bunch of DVDs). Steve's fits even more, because his computer is smaller. Best part is that there are compartments into which everything neatly fits, so I'm not searching forever.

However, Steve and I both have very different needs. I need something to hold just my computer, its charger, and basic day-to-day things. So although my bag needs to be larger than Steve's—to hold the computer—it also needs to be smaller on my back. Steve needs his to hold his computer a bunch of notes, his previous night's graded assignments, the test he's giving that day, possibly some snack of some sort, possibly water, and a whole host of other crap. Why? Because as soon as I get into my office, I have everything I need right there. Steve, on the other hand, is an adjunct teacher, meaning that he's got to carry his office on his back. There are a few things that both of us require, and a few things that would be nice bonuses, but we can have some wiggle room on.

On to the requirements:

1) It's got to be vegan. I'm not spending our money on something that has animal parts on it, including leather. This is absolutely non-negotiable.

2) It's got to be within my price range. I spent about $44 for each of our bags all those years ago, because we were making enough money that $44 wasn't a huge expense. I still researched the heck out of it, and bought the bags carefully, because this is something you're using every day, and you want it to be so convenient that you don't even think about it. Currently, we're not making too terribly much money, and need for our things to be within our price range. Right now, $44 is workable, but a titch on the pricey side. I wish we could afford more, but there you go. In other words, I'll spend it if I know that said bag will last longer than the (roughly) three years that the current bags have lasted.

3) Steve wants one that is big enough to hold all his stuff. He's also not too fussed about it looking nerdpack like. Because of the sheer quantity of stuff that he's carrying, his needs to maximise the comfort, and durability. He does need it to hold his laptop, but if there isn't a particular compartment meant for laptops (with the extra padding that comes with it), he's willing to use his own laptop sleeve for it, which he does own already. His laptop is 15".

4) I want for mine to be sleek, but big enough to hold my 17" macbook pro. I specifically want the laptop compartment, because I carry my computer with me all over the place, and I want the computer to be segregated from the chaos that is the rest of my bag. If something spills, at least I've got a bit of a thick, physical barrier between the $3,000 machine and the $1 bottle of water.

5) Comfort. Both of us tend to carry our backpacks frequently. We both need thick, cushioned shoulder straps. Padding is definitely a good thing.

This likely means that I'll be purchasing different ones for me and him. I'm OK with that.

My wants:

1) Red. I'd like for my bag to have as much red as possible, because it's my favourite colour, and it's different from every other laptop bag, which is either grey or black. I like being able to pick out my bag from a lineup. Yes, I know that looks aren't everything, but I do like using things that are attractive.

2) A nice carrying handle. I don't frequently use it for more than a few seconds, but the handle up on top of the backpack is often neglected. They're rarely comfortable to use. I like my current top handle, because it's just as padded as the rest of the bag.

3) Mobile phone holder. Again, not an absolute requirement, but for me, I used my mobile phone holder to hold my phone and my metro card, because I reached for both so frequently. I found out that I can even slide my ipod touch 2nd gen in there instead of the mobile phone, because the holder is flexible.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. I mainly mad this list so that I can organise my thoughts on it, and make sure that I'm not missing anything major. If you can think of anything that I'm missing (in my set of requirements) that you think I should be considering, please let me know.

Annoying subway preachers

I was once on a small shuttle bus that took me between my bus stop and my job. This was years ago, when I lived in Florida, and actually needed such services. Thank goodness they existed, because it was a goodly mile or so to get there, and on hot days, an air conditioned bus is much nicer than walking.

The driver had on some bible preaching show on the radio, but the reception was terrible. Overlaid on the show was a rap station. It was very interesting to listen to, because you could hear the beats of the rap song, which was for whatever reason, in iambic pentameter. What was the interesting part? The rap song and the preacher synced up almost perfectly. Why? Because the preacher had training in speaking in public. He doesn’t have to yell and gesture wildly. He has to open his mouth, and fall into those familiar patterns that humans are so attuned to, and people listen. People don’t even realise that they’re listening. It just sneaks right in there.

This is part of the objection I have to those street preachers that invade our subways. It’s offensive, not just because it’s intrusive during a time (journey to work) that should be a private moment between you and your ipod, but also because they suck. They have none of the natural charisma that the trained preachers have, and they have absolutely none of the skill that comes from speaking in front of people for a long time. They’re making a mockery of an art form.

To someone who does know how to speak in public, listening to that crap is like someone who’s got a good ear for music listening to someone caterwaul along to a song on the radio, and do so off-key. Then, all of a sudden, even though you know the correct tune, all you can hear is the horrible singing.

Take home message: save the crappy flailing arms and shouting for your church. Nobody else cares. If you’re going to preach out on the streets, where others are going to have to listen to you without being able to get away from it, have the decency to do it well. Otherwise, shut up and let me get back to ignoring you and the rest of the world.

Soothing nature/animal documentaries

I'm going to rant for a bit, so please carry on if you don't want to hear me frothing at the mouth about stuff that, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that important to anyone else.

You know what I miss? Good documentaries about animals. I'm talking those ones with a soothing voiced person telling us really cool facts about animals in their natural habitat. When Animal Planet (a TV station in the USA) came out, I spent almost the full first day watching those awesome documentaries. It was so cool. I would catch every episode of Nature that I could on PBS. I would watch them obsessively.

This goes double for Food Network. I remember a time when there were back-to-back cooking shows. Not with someone with any particular "celebrity" or "personality". Instead, it was people who would stand there, and teach you how to make food, and how to make it well. No gimmicks, no product lines, no nothing. Just good, honest shows.

Then, over time, Food Network stopped playing cooking shows, and started playing stuff that only vaguely had to do with food. Chefs on the network became celebrities in their own right, and were more interested in forwarding their gimmick than telling you anything about cooking. And then we got Sandra Lee.

This is what's happening to the documentaries too. National Geographic used to be at the forefront of excellent documentaries about animals and nature. Now? They're doing some crap about "Gorilla Murderers" and other such rubbish, where half the bloody thing is interviews with idiotic locals. It's sensationalised rot.

I want, nay, demand, the documentaries of my youth, and I don't think I'm the only one.

This is like when MTV stopped playing music videos. So then they made MTV2. Which also stopped playing music videos. And then the FOOD FREAKING NETWORK stopped playing real cooking shows, in favour of garbage. So then they come out with the Cooking Channel.

Which promptly starts playing the same old crap.

Now I remember why I cancelled the cable TV. Netflix gets me there.

Pineapple scones

Sweet scones are meant to be unhealthy. Don't try to use wholemeal flour for these. They won't be as nice. Use the all purpose flour. Also, don't use brown sugar. Use the crappy white sugar. Trust me, it's worth it. You're not having these every day. You have them once in a great while with a cup of tea, and a spot of jam. Feel free to substitute orange juice for the pineapple juice if you'd like to. It'll be lovely still.

VERY IMPORTANT: Do not combine the wet with the dry ingredients until the oven is heated, the baking sheets are prepared, and you're ready to toss them into the oven. If the dough sits around for too long, the baking soda and baking powder will be spent, and your scones won't rise. Ew.

Pineapple Scones

2 cups all purpose flour
1 TB baking powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
¼ cup oil
¾ cup pineapple juice
½ cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350F.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and baking soda together. Using a whisk, lightly whip the flour, baking powder, and baking soda together, so that everything is well combined. Combine the oil with the dry ingredients, and stir with a rubber spatula. Stir until all the oil is incorporated with the flour.

In a measuring cup, measure out ¾ cup of pineapple juice. Measure out ½ cup of sugar, and pour it into the pineapple juice. Stir the sugar and juice together. It won't completely dissolve, but do your best to dissolve as much as you can.

When the oven is preheated, set up your baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon baking mats. You need some kind of protection for your baking sheet, because these suckers will STICK. Between the pineapple juice and the sugar, you're dealing with sticky little guys.

Using a rubber spatula, scrape out every last drop of juice and sugar from the measuring cup directly into the flour mixture. Use said rubber spatula to combine the ingredients together well. Don't overwork the mixture, or you'll end up with tough scones, and nobody wants that. Just mix until everything is combined. Don't worry if there are lumps. It will bake out.

Also, don't worry if the dough seems extremely wet and kind of sticky. It's supposed to be.

Using a tablespoon, drop the dough onto your lined baking sheet. Try to space them apart about 1 inch away from each other, so they don't run into each other when they bake.

Bake on the bottom rack at 350F for 14 minutes. When 14 minutes are finished, turn the baking sheet around, and move it to the top rack. Bake for an additional 6 minutes. When the baking is done, remove from the oven, and cool the scones in the baking sheet.

Tofu Scramble

In The New and Now Zen cookbook (did I get that name right?) the author suggests that one use regular (not firm) tofu to make tofu scramble, because the texture of well made scrambled eggs is soft, and not firm. I gave it a shot this morning, using some ideas from her first book, which detailed Japanese recipes. In it, she had you use a good fair bit of vegetables, so that each pound of tofu is stretched much further than when you make regular tofu scramble.

Let me just say that it came out fantastic. I didn't have nutritional yeast, and I don't like the colour that soy sauce makes my scramble, so I left both out. However, I did use scallions (about 3 stalks), carrots (3 medium), a courgette (small one from which I already took a couple of thin slices for a sandwich last night), turmeric, garlic powder, and salt. I let the carrot and scallion cook in oil until it was soft. Then, I piled up the veg to one side of my skillet, and added another teaspoon or so of oil. I dropped the whole cubes of 1 lb of soft tofu into the skillet. This is tofu that Steve picked up from Chinatown on Sunday. They sell both firm and soft tofu.

Their version of soft tofu is not like that which you'd find commercially. Instead, it's kind of firm, but silkier than firm tofu. Very lovely stuff. I generally don't buy it, because the firm does everything that I want it to, but they ran out of the firm, so Steve bought one of the soft. I added the turmeric and salt.

Anyway. Once the tofus were in the pan (in Chinatown, the tofus are made in ⅓ pound increments, for whatever reason), I let them sear a bit for about a minute. Then I seared off the other sides for about 30 seconds each. I wanted to evaporate a bit of the excess liquid. Then, as I stirred it with my wooden spoon, the tofu broke up into chunks on its own. That's the other bonus of using soft tofu. You don't need to mash it ahead of time, and make your hand feel frozen.

I let the veg and tofu cook together for a good five minutes or so, so that the excess liquid would evaporate, and the tofu would break up a bit more. Essentially, I wanted it to get to the point where it gets a little watery, then cross over to the other side, where it dries out a bit. I wanted a bit of moistness in the scramble, but not so much that there's liquid that'd pool on my plate. Your stove may require more or less time.

At the last 3 minutes of cooking, I added the courgette. It came out fantastic. We ate it with garlic toast.

Biscuits/Scones

Scone/Biscuits

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ cup coconut milk
¾ cups water
2 tsp oil
1 tsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350F

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a mixing bowl. Using a whisk, combine the ingredients together until thoroughly mixed. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I use a silicon baking mat).

In a blender, combine the coconut milk, water, oil, and sugar. You can mix the liquid ingredients by hand, but I've found that I get best results when I use a blender. If your coconut milk is not chilled cold and separated, it works just fine to mix by hand.

When the oven is preheated, combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Use as little force as possible when combining everything together. However, because the recipe is fairly forgiving, don't worry if you work it a little hard. Just be careful to be gentle with the dough.

Using a table spoon measure, measure out about 25 - 30 little ball shaped dough lumps, and place them on your baking sheet. You can use a small ice cream scoop to do the job even better.

Leave about 1 inch on all sides to allow the biscuits to expand as needed.

Bake in the oven for 14 minutes.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1 1/2 cups flour (REMOVE three TB of flour from the 1 1/2 cups)
3 TB cornstarch
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

Combine in a measuring cup:
1 cup pineapple juice
1/3 cup canola, peanut, or corn oil
1 TB cider or distilled vinegar
1 TB vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract

20 oz can of pineapple chunks in pineapple juice (this is where the juice came from; if you don't have quite enough juice, feel free to augment it with water)


Preheat oven to 350F. Line your baking apparatus with parchment paper. Drain (but don't squeeze out excess juice from) the can of pineapple chunks, and reserve the juice. Sprinkle the pineapple evenly over the parchment paper in your baking dish.

Sift the flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together. Once you've sifted them into your mixing bowl, use a whisk to combine the ingredients together completely.

In a separate container, combine the pineapple juice (augmenting with water, as needed), oil, vinegar, vanilla, and almond extract. It's not going to form any kind of emulsion, but that's OK. When the oven is preheated (and not a minute sooner) combine the liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients, using a rubber spatula, so that you can quickly combine all the ingredients together. Do this in as few stirs as possible. If there are lumps in the batter, it's OK. They'll bake out. The important part is to combine everything quickly.

Then, using your rubber spatula to scrape down the bowl completely, pour the batter into the baking dish with the pineapples in. Get every last bit of batter into the dish, so that you don't miss anything.

Bake in the oven at 350F for 37 minutes. When the cake is finished baking, remove it from the oven, and invert it onto an oven safe dish. I used a baking sheet. Remove the parchment paper, and lightly sprinkle the pineapple chunks with a bit of brown sugar. If some of your pineapple pieces get stuck, don't worry. The sugar is going to cover up any ugly spots. Place the dish under the broiler for a few seconds at a time, until the sugar is melted and caramelised.

The brown sugar under the broiler step is optional, but I like it, because it makes such a nice crispy counterpoint to the moist cake.

1 year later, and still smoke free

I got a letter from the NYC Dept of Health, letting me know that one year ago, I had called 311. That means that it's been one year since I quit smoking.

I remember that night well. Puppy and I were chatting, and I noticed that I was down to three packs of cigarettes. That would mean that I'd have another nine day's worth of smokes left in my stash. I went to the box that the cigarettes came in (I generally sent away for them, because I could buy cartons, rather than one pack at a time). It wasn't until that moment that I noticed that there was a note in the bottom of the box. "Due to Obama's [something or other law], we can't ship cigarettes anymore. Sorry guys!" (Or something like that.)

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach, as I realised that a habit that used to cost me $4.50 a pack (including shipping) was about to jump to $12+ per pack. And a pack lasts me 3 days. $12 for 3 days is more than I spend on groceries. In a blind panic, I looked at Puppy, and said, "I have to quit. There's absolutely no choice anymore." I called 311 that night to ask about getting nic patches for free (they provided the first two weeks for free, then you're supposed to use the money you'd save from not smoking to buy your next round).

It went horribly. I was shaking all the time, dehydrated, and had the most awful, violent, upsetting nightmares. Anyone who knows me knows that I won't even watch films that are violent, because they upset me. Having things more graphic and brutal than that invade my brain was horrible. What was worse is that every time I'd pass by a smoker, the cravings would get stronger, and more severe. I took that mess for about a week, and stopped. It was getting too physically painful to function. Fortunately, a friend had a batch of Chantix that he was done with, and let me have. Why couldn't I go get my own? While NYC does provide Chantix, and ever major insurance and health care plan covers it, I had none at all. That'd mean I'd need to spend hundreds of dollars out of pocket for a doctor's visit, then hundreds of dollars on the pill. I don't know how that's supposed to be a choice.

So here I am. The reason I'm quitting smoking is because I can't afford it anymore. The best option (Chantix) is restricted to those folks who have the access to a doctor, and a health care plan. The worst option (nicotine patches, which do not work) are available freely. The garbage wasn't working, so I went for the Chantix.

What really helped, however, was this book called The Easy Way to Quit Smoking. I'd been off of cigarettes for a couple of weeks by that point, so I couldn't follow his advice of continuing to smoke while reading the book, and seeing that I could break the addiction. Whatever, that's fine. I was at least on the Chantix which deadened the effect of what little cigarette smoke I was inhaling from being outside, etc. WIth the combination of the two, I managed to get from going through even worse withdrawal symptoms (of quitting the patch, no less) into having my body be back at a reasonable equilibrium.

This is also when I realised that were I ever to rely on hormonal birth control I'd be pregnant many times over. I'd keep forgetting to take the pill. I tried alarms, I tried notes to myself, I tried carrying the pill in my bag. No dice. I was supposed to take it twice a day, then taper off to once a day, then taper off to none eventually. I started taking it once a day, because that's about what I could remember, and reading my book. I read the book in bites, rather than all at once, because my schedule still existed, and I still had a life.

Funny thing is that I never got to the end of the book, but I did manage to break the spell that cigarettes had over me. I don't care for the smell so much, but it doesn't grate on me like it did when I was on the gods-awful patch.

Has anyone out there actually used a patch successfully?

As I sit here in bed, hacking up a lung (bad flu or something), I'm kind of at peace to know that it's a horrible virus inside me that's causing it, and not my own actions. I don't know why, but that gives me some level of comfort for some reason.

Here's to one year, and hopefully many more, of being free of my addiction.

Quinoa & Collards

I generally like Quinoa, but in fairly dry applications, like pilaf, or whatnot. What I didn’t realise is that it also does rather well in wet-ish applications as well. I made a dish with curried collard greens. You know the drill. Mustard seed, cumin seed, sesame seed, curry leaves, onions, garlic, ginger, bla bla bla. Throw in collard greens (chopped finely at the stem, and coarsely at the leaves, so that they cook at the same time). Finish with a splash of coconut milk and water. Let the collard greens get tender.

While that was going, I had a pot boiling with quinoa in. I let it cook until it was about 75% of the way done. I drained it, and dumped it into the collard greens. The quinoa absorbed the extra liquid in the pot, and made it so that the whole thing became coherent. It wasn’t as fluffy and dry as I generally serve quinoa, but I didn’t care. It was cold out, and I wanted comfort food. In case you haven’t noticed by now, comfort food tends to be creamy, and on the wetter side. Bread is good, but it becomes great when doused in large quantities of garlic, oil, and herbs. Mashed potatoes don’t become pleasurable until bathed in coconut milk, and showers of ground black pepper. Macaroni and cheese that’s not smothered in the sauce is just not tasty. Similarly, comfort quinoa is generous with the wet.

When it finished cooking, there was still a bit of sauce in the pot. A kind of quinoa and collard green and coconut cream gravy. I made a fairly large pot of the stuff, but Steve and I managed to demolish it in two sittings. First sitting was the night I made it. I served it with rounds of French bread that I sauteed in oil until it was crispy like a crouton on both sides, then I sprinkled it with salt. We ate the quinoa sort of like a thing to pile on crackers. It was ever so tasty. When the toasts were done, we just ate the rest of the stuff with a spoon.

The second sitting involves us sitting on this bus on the way to DC. The quinoa is now gone. Boo.

Dhokla

It's easy to make, and relatively low drama. Here's my rough guesstimation of a recipe:

1 cup rice flour
1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup coconut milk + enough water to make the dough into a batter
1 teaspoon lemon juice, OR 1 teaspoon vinegar, OR 1/2 tsp citric acid
1/4 tsp - 1/2 tsp turmeric (adjust to your colour preference)
1/4 tsp salt
big pinch asafoetida
3/4 tsp baking soda

Soak the rice flour and chickpea flour in coconut milk/water and lemon juice/citric/vinegar overnight. Soak it on your counter, as the souring will be helped by the natural fermentation of the rice and chickpeas. You're looking to end up with batter that's the consistency of pancake batter. The next day, stir in the turmeric, salt, and asafoetida. Prepare a pan and a steamer. This will easily fill a standard cake pan. I use a steamer that fits over my wok, or a steaming rack in a big pot, with a bit of water. Grease your cake pan with oil.

When the water comes to a full boil, and the steamer is all nice and steamy, add the baking soda to the batter. You want to add the baking soda at the absolute last minute possible, because it will react with the acid almost immediately. You want the baking soda to be able to create enough bubbles that the batter becomes light and airy, and stays that way. Put the cake pan with the batter into the steamer. Let steam for 20 minutes. Turn the heat down to medium low when you put the cake pan in, so that the water isn't at a fierce boil. This prevents the pan from drying out, and burning.

When the timer goes off at the end of 20 minutes, turn off the heat, and let the cake pan sit for another 10 minutes. Cut around the edges with a knife, so that the dhokla comes out neatly. Chop into 1 inch squares or diamond shapes.

To garnish

1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 big pinches asafoetida
5 - 10 chiles, sliced vertically

Heat the oil over high heat. Add the mustard seeds. When they pop loudly and vigorously, add the chiles. Turn off the heat. Spoon the mixture over the cut up dhokla.

EDIT: If you don't want to soak overnight, don't bother with rice flour. Use just chickpea flour. The final batter you end up with should be the consistency of thick pancake batter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wux9aLivoDQ

These two ladies are too cute. Check out their video.

I've never heard of adding dosa batter to bajji, but I certainly will from now on!

Seriously?

I found this recipe on Vegweb for Tofu Sour Cream (which, for the record, came out delicious), involving really simple ingredients: tofu, fresh lemon juice (and it did make a difference using fresh), olive oil, salt. The recipe called for sweetener, but nuts to that. I hate sweetener. Also, vinegar. Meh. Don't really care about vinegar. If I'm adding lemon anyway, I'll stick with lemon, and not have to add another ingredient to keep track of.

However, when reading the comments for the recipe, I wanted to slap my forehead repeatedly. Various folk tried to use /frozen/ tofu.

D'oh!

Clearly, they'd never worked with the stuff before, and weren't aware that when you freeze tofu, it gets a very spongy texture. There are some Chinese dishes that take advantage of this property, and they're lovely (not my thing personally, but I know people who like that extra chewy texture). But when you're blending tofu in a processor or grinder of some sort, you're meant to use the stuff direct from the box.

And I thought /I/ had it hard with writing recipes! For someone who has worked with tofu before, it's very obvious that no amount of grinding is going to get frozen tofu into a soft fluffy cream like you'd get with fresh tofu (the fresher the better, come to think of it). For someone who's never touched the stuff, however, there are bound to be pitfalls. This is why I love VegWeb so much: there's various people who reply to the recipe with their experience, and you can learn from it by reading the comments. It's become my go-to source for when I'm trying something that I haven't made before.

Cutting board

While we're on the subject, let's talk cutting boards. I'm not going to ask you to go out and spend a fortune on them. I have one large one that I bought in a store for like $17. This is one of those things that takes a little more work to get your hands on for cheap, but again, it's well worth it.

I was in Florida at the time, and at a friend's house. He had a beautiful kitchen. Viking range, gorgeous marble counter tops, one of those huge sinks that you can easily wash a large stock pot in with no trouble at all, and enormous windows to let in the heavenly Florida sunshine. He even had the Henckles knives that I'd been eyeing at the store!

And then I saw his cutting boards. They were glass. Glass with pretty patterns on.

OH GOD WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME.

Having any kind of knife, cruddy or otherwise, and using a glass cutting board, your counter tops, or a hard plastic cutting boards (yes, they're not /as bad/ as glass, but they're pretty up there) is like seeing a really hot guy at a cocktail party, and then having him turn around to see that his face looks like he fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Aside from the annoying loud tapping noise that happens every time the knife hits the glass cutting board (and the gut-wrenching feeling that you're going to shatter the thing), you're wrecking your knife. This goes for using the counter to cut on. Or a plate. I think I just imagined my own personal hell: a person using a small tiny paring knife to cut up a mountain of vegetables, doing it on a ceramic plate that's sat atop a glass cutting board. Also, it's a plate from a tea cup and plate dealie, so there's no flat surface. Also, the cutting board is 1 inch square. Oh. And there's a giant knife block behind the person, with actual knives in.

Anyone who likes to cook will likely be cringing right now.

Let me explain a couple of things, and hopefully it will all make sense in the end. A cutting board is for a couple of things. First and foremost, it protects your knives from getting damaged. When your knife constantly is hitting hard surfaces (counter top, glass cutting board, dinner plate, etc.), the pointy tip that makes the edge is slamming against a surface that it's not meant to encounter, and over a very short time, the knife's edge warps, bends, or even shatters (in tiny little places; it's not instantly noticeable). A cutting board will also protect your counter top. Finally, a decent sized cutting board means that you're not dirtying up a million little bowls and such while you're cooking.

I know you've seen the shows on TV or the Internet where everything is neatly placed into bowls, which the chef tips into the cooking vessel. The reason they do it this way is that on TV, you want the ingredients to be in stark enough contrast to each other that you can easily identify them. Realistically, you'll notice that folk who have a large cutting board will tend to use it as a space to park the prepped veggies.

Suppose I'm making a potato soup. I set the pot on the stove over medium heat, and quickly chop an onion. If I'm making a bit more, I chop two. It shouldn't take me but a minute or two. By the time the onions are chopped, the pot is pre-heated. I heave the onions into the pot, and throw in a teaspoon or so of oil, and stir everything around. I drop down the heat to medium low, and let the onions simmer away. While that's going, I peel and chop my potatoes. For two people, I'll use two to three potatoes. For each additional person, I'll add an extra potato. Point is that while I'm chopping the potatoes, I want space enough for the potatoes to hang out while I finish the job of chopping them. Were I to have one of those dainty little cutting boards, I'd need to find a bowl where the potatoes can park. With my large cutting board, I keep everything in one place, and it's easy enough to lift the whole do, and carry it over to the stove when the veg are ready to go in.

This goes double for when I'm making more complex things, like vegetable soups, where your aromatics alone end up being three to five ingredients (onions, celery, carrots, garlic, bell peppers, etc etc), to say nothing of the veg to follow. Again, I want a place for all the different veggies to hang out so that I'm not constantly bumbling around, looking for containers for everything.

What material should you get?

Whatever you can afford that's not glass or hard plastic or marble. Stick with wood, or plastic. Try to avoid one with ridges around the side, because it makes sliding vegetables from the board to the sink a pain in the butt. Instead, try to get one that's completely flat. Trawl your local department stores for sales on them.

If you insist on getting one of those horrible flexible cutting boards, please use them as sort of liners for your larger cutting board. They're too thin to protect your knives. The first cutting board I bought was plastic. That was three years ago, and I'm still using it quite happily to this day. It's about 1/2 inch thick, and very large. I've got plenty of space for whatever I'm prepping. Later, I bought a small wooden one to supplement the plastic one, because I found myself wanting to wash just the little guy when chopping just one small onion, or one clove of garlic. For anything more than that, I pull out the big dog.

Make sure your cutting board is, at the very least, the size of a standard sized sheet of paper. Get one (initially) that's relatively cheap, so that you're not worried about damaging it with repeated use. Anywhere between $10 - $30 is a reasonable amount to spend on one, because you will use it so frequently. This one is about the size of a cookie sheet, and is around $11. Even if you live in a small apartment, get a decent sized cutting board. It's worth the space.

Life will be good.