curry-leaf cocktail

Run, do not walk, to Rendezvous in Central Square and order yourself a curry-leaf cocktail before they are rotated off the menu.
The cocktails at Rendezvous are generally quite good, but this one is really great. Curry-leaf-infused gin, with lime and celery juice. You get that fresh, vegetal hit of celery and lime, and then the finish is the floral fragrance of the curry leaf. Dreamy, and great for spring.
(While you’re there, get the gnocchi. Pillowy-light and perfect every time. Yum.)

ready-to-eat microwave meals that don’t suck!


These SWAD brand “micro curry” pouch meals are astonishingly tasty. I picked a couple up at Patel Brothers in Chicago, on a whim, because they were cheap (less than $2) and hope springs eternal that convenience food won’t taste like complete shite. http://www.bqfoods.com/readytoeat2.html
Turns out they are awesome. I’ve had the Baingan Bharta and the Methi Mutter Malai, and when combined with rice you can get two light meals (or one hearty one) out of the packet. Who knows what poisons you get from microwaving food in a plastic packet, but if it’s only once in a while I guess it probably isn’t the worst thing ever. Because I tell ya, for 2 bucks and 2 minutes and some leftover rice, you can’t really beat these.
Appear to be available at the Waltham (Moody St) Patel Brothers store also, and presumably at other Indian groceries elsewhere.

pi(e) day; or, we have returned

Hi everyone. Tallasiandude pointed out to me this morning at breakfast that there are NO POSTS AT ALL on this blog anymore because the last one is more than 30 days old, and that is just sad.
So, since as of last Wednesday we have actually finally moved to the new house (which is extra-beyond awesome, more on that later), we have a bed and a shower and a semi-set-up kitchen, and we don’t actually have any specific nightmarishly-urgent task to complete, I actually have two minutes to spare for (dare I say?) Leisure Activities.
And so I will post about our moving-day dinner.
We have a friend, DZ, whose birthday is March 14. He now lives in Seattle, but when he lived here he would have an annual Pi(e) Party on his birthday. This is genius on so many levels: it’s a pun, it’s exceedingly nerdy, and there’s PIE. Everyone would make pies and bring them along, often with a pi symbol cut into the crust to vent steam. (It is awesome to party with crafty creative nerdy types.)
Anyway, he’s not here this year so there was no Pi(e) Party for us to go to, which was good in any case because we had the movers coming that day, and we were up to our ears in furniture and boxes and kittykats trying to escape into the shrubbery. Which of course is hungry business, and so as night fell we needed to forage for some dinner. And we wanted to have some pie, as it seemed only fitting.
And so we settled on the Deluxe Town Diner, a fine old enamel traincar diner in Watertown, which has excellent pancakes of many types at brunch. And which also turns out to have excellent food at dinner.

The fried chicken was extremely crunchy and came with deliciously creamy skin-on mashed potatoes and buttery-garlicky broccoli. The meatloaf was non-standard, containing sauteed veg such as carrot and celery, but this made it quite savory and yummy; it also came with the fab taters and some spinach prepared similarly to the broccoli. Both green vegetables were perfectly cooked crisp-tender, which is rare and wonderful.
And of course, at the end, there was pie.

Mixed berry pie, in homemade crust, with vanilla ice cream. Yum. And then we went home and fell into the bed and slept.
Later that week, we scrambled around and set up the house a little bit, because we had NoodleFest ’07 scheduled for the weekend (post to follow), and so I leave you with a photo of our living room in progress. (Do i hear cheering? Screams of joy and pleasure at its fabulousness? Oh, sorry, that’s me.)

Summer in a bowl




Summer in a bowl

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I was a bit worried that I had ruined the raspberries by putting them in the freezer.

We had a pretty good bounty this past summer, but at the time, every berry that I didn’t get to eat felt like a sacrifice of the greatest magnitude. And they looked so sad in their plastic container, frost and ice crystals forming over them, suffering the indignity of having their integrity ruptured by the expansion of the freezing juices, and getting accidentally thawed when the freezer door didn’t quite shut properly.

It turned out to be worth the wait, as their fruity tartness blended nicely with the simple creamy sweetness of the Häagen Dazs vanilla ice cream that we also had in the fridge. (An interesting contrast to a few days ago, when it seemed too sweet when I had some with some oreos.)

It was like you could taste a bit of summer in every bite, the snow, freezing rain and sleet outside notwithstanding.


Unhappy Meals

I’ve stumbled upon this article by Michael Pollan twice now — once in my friend Ryan’s Visualizing Science blog, and then again this afternoon, when my friend shr accidentally messaged me a link to it that he had intended to send to his lovely wife. I’m taking it as a sign of its relative significance, so I figured the least I could do was post a link to it, so here you go.
A bit depressing, but a good read nonetheless.

the world is bad

and Helen Hill would hate the very fact of my saying so.
I went to college with a lot of really cool, interesting, smart, crazy people, and being a part of that community was one of the best experiences of my life. Helen was one of them, and so was her husband Paul. I have always thought of the two of them as the most genuinely good, kind, loving and creative people I have ever met, and it pleased me immensely that they fell in love and got married.
Someone broke into their house and killed her last week. They shot Paul too, but he lived through it, protecting their son. How Paul will make his way after this I don’t have any idea, but if anyone can it is him. I don’t know what else to say, but I will try to come up with something so that he knows my thoughts and love are with him.
Any world where this is possible is bad. Worth living in, and filled with good and wonderful things, but at its foundation bad. Please find your loved ones, right now, even the ones you haven’t seen or talked to in many years, and tell them you love them. Those people you think of fondly every so often but never see any more, look them up and write them a letter. Do something good for someone you’ve never met. Make contact. Fight the badness.
What happened: http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/16386330.htm
Helen’s family & friends & how to donate to Doctors Without Borders in her name: http://www.helenhill.org/

kebab kubideh recipe

Kebab Kubideh
large yellow onion, peeled and grated (i run it through my immersion blender’s chopping attachment, which purees it perfectly)
1/2 lb ground lamb + 1/2 lb ground beef (or 1 lb beef)
1 clove garlic peeled and finely chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp paprika
1 pinch saffron threads
1 tbsp butter, melted
ground sumac & lemon wedges (optional garnish)
Drain the grated onions in a sieve over a bowl for 2 hours. Press onions to release more juice. (Onion juice is good to use in soups — I use mine to cook some carrots, then whizz them with yogurt & milk to make a soup, flavored with fresh dill or middle-eastern spices.) Add onion pulp to large bowl, then add meat, garlic, egg, crumbs, salt, pepper, turmeric and paprika; mix well. Divide into eighths and make each into a 5″ cylinder, and slide it onto a large flat wide metal skewer, forming and flattening around the skewer — if you don’t have this type of flat skewer, just do as I do and make 8-10 rectangles about 8″x1.5″ and 1/4″ thick. Melt the butter and crumble in the saffron (or crush it in a mortar, then add). (Technically, this step is supposed to be toast saffron 30 seconds in dry pan, crush, add 1 tbsp boiling water, then add butter to melt. I’ve done the shortcut with no ill effect.) Brush kebabs with saffron butter and grill over medium hot coals or in a grill pan or cast iron skillet, brushing each side with more butter as you go. This brushing with saffron butter is the key to the deliciousness, so don’t skip. Serve with buttered basmati rice and grilled tomato halves, and sprinkle with sumac and/or offer lemon wedges if you like. I also make a yogurt/dried mint/chopped cucumber salad to go with this.

RIP Manka’s

MissLudmillla & I had a fantastic dinner at Manka’s Inverness Lodge in early December, during our much-needed Marin weekend escape, and now I am very glad indeed that we had the chance, as it has burned to the ground in what seems to be a freak wind accident.
It was very beautiful inside, all old dark wood, battered pewter and old California money — it was too dark for us to see much outside — and the food, very nearly all extremely local, was amazing and delicious.
I am sad. I hope they reopen… it won’t be the same, but perhaps it can still be lovely.
For the news story on the fire: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/28/MNGQ8N95T91.DTL

Christmas Eve Dinner



Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

FoodNerd had to head off to the parental homestead yesterday afternoon which leaves me to my own devices until tomorrow when I head out there myself to extricate her. I was hoping to meet up with friends tonight and maybe grab some dinner out, but plans fell through and I had to fend for myself.

Under these circumstances, I’ll generally just eat something quick and easy: ramen and egg, pasta with Classico red sauce and some generic granulated cheese, mac ‘n franks. Basically, junk food, although I’ve convinced myself that the mac ‘n franks is really the only one that approaches the line in terms of sketchiness. I actually think the ramen business is pretty good as far as quick meals go since I get my protein from the eggs, and I’ve taken to adding kimchi and, very recently, tofu.

But I did the ramen thing last night, and I wanted a little more than just pasta, cheesy or otherwise.

Upon scanning the fridge, I discovered a bag of kale that Ma & Pa FoodNerd had brought from their garden. (Let’s hear it for the mild winter.) I’ve never cooked with kale before, but I decided to just run with it.

So, taking a cue from this post, I chopped up 3 cloves of garlic, lightly sauteed them in olive oil with some fresh ground pepper, added some chopped up kale (just 4 leaves, which initially filled the 3 quart pot I was using) and threw in a generous pinch of salt. Once it had wilted down a bit I added a bit of chicken broth (thank you, FoodNerd, for stocking up) and then supplemented it with some (defrosted) frozen shrimpies from Trader Joe’s. I let it simmer waiting for the pasta to finish cooking and then just dumped the whole mess over the drained pasta.

I expected it to be a little bitter and kind of bland. It turned out to be neither. Surprisingly tasty, actually. (I admit it, I’m not normally a kale guy.) I’m sure the MSG in the chicken broth is helping out a bit here, but I think the garlic and salt also go a long way. And all told, including defrosting the shrimp and boiling the water, the whole business took about 20 minutes to prepare. Schweet.