Category: Food Stories

Small adventures in my kitchen

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I have always loved the bright red look of Kashmiri curries and last grocery visit I picked up some mild but vibrant Kashmiri red chili. I looked up a few recipes for Rista, a lamb meatball curry online because I had ground turkey sitting in the fridge waiting for me. Didn’t follow the recipe completely. However, I did learn how to use the spice and  a new meatball cooking technique.

The meatball mixture included baking powder and cornflour/starch. The meatballs were then simmered in water.  This combination of no fillers like breadcrumbs or crackers and no binders like eggs, yielded a surprisingly soft and pillowy meatball. The curry itself was beautifully crimson, mild in spice, light in texture, and flavorful infused with meatball-simmered-water. I was surprised with the difference in taste. Aside from the use of this special chili powder and the cornstarch-baking powder, simmered meatball, the recipe was essentially the same as any Bengali curry.

Instead of struggling to follow a completely a unfamiliar recipe, this was a less intimidating way to try a different cuisine. Follow your own recipe and simply switch one spice for something different.

I added star anise to beef stew last week. That was wonderful too. Granted sometimes the experiments can be less than successful. But, I find that these small cultural modulations show me wide possibilities in my regular, every day and known recipes.

I am a fan of Kashmiri Mirch now. What other ways can I use it?

On the other hand, I followed Bobby Flay’s recipe for buttermilk pancakes with bourbon molassas butter last weekend. Familiar sweet pancakes all dressed up for a fancy weekend party.  Food experiments come in all degrees involving a recipe, spice swap, technique change, substitutions by necessity, varying measurements and more. Pick one and play to have a tasty adventure.

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Hope you are having as much fun in the kitchen as I am!

Wishing you happy adventures,

Hungryphil

 

 

Cooking With Essential Oils and the Blondeyogi

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Thank you, blonde yogi, for cooking with me! We tried Beef Stew with Rose Mary Oil, DoTerra Winter White Chocolate with Cinnamon and Clove oil, and Toast with Wild Orange Butter.

Here is what I learned from the experience:

  1. Oils are easiest to incorporate in beverages, hot or cold. The Winter White Hot Chocolate was a delicious concoction of almond milk, spices, and white chocolate. So soothing. Here is the recipe.
  2. Oils are also perfect additions to flavored oils and butter. Our buttered toast with two drops of Wild Orange Oil and a touch of honey was my favorite.
  3. The taste of the stew with Rosemary oil was perhaps the most subtle. I like the idea of a collection of essential oils as both part of a medicine cabinet and a flavor pantry. Reach for whatever you have.

The experience was a change in perspective about how I use essential oils beyond the yoga mat and take the practice into the kitchen. I can see myself including bergamot, peppermint, ginger, lemon, cloves, cinnamon etc in my teas and adding oils like rosemary, thyme, oregano to olive oil or butter for dipping warm bread. Maybe I need to move my oils closer to the kitchen. Hmmmmm……

What are your favorite ways to use essential oils in your recipes?

More hungryphil-wobblyogi experiments to come! OnGuard Pancakes, next. Join me blondeyogi.

Wishing you good eating, moving, breathing and Happy Thanksgiving for readers in the U.S.,

Hungryphil

P.S. I was not the only one who liked the buttered toast the best! Thank you, Blonde Yogi Junior for taste testing with us!

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Community Church Cookbooks…….

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……show us a lot about the power of food to bring a community together. Someone had to collect the recipes, each named person wrote down and shared something from their table, someone typed the pages, someone organized the book, someone punched the holes, someone tied the yarn that bound the book….the book has recipes, scripture, has anecdotes about how to preserve love. The gentle and fragile binding of the cookbook holds the congregation and what each of them materially and spiritually consumes. It is a record of loving effort.

Imagine putting together a cookbook with your loved ones, maybe its a collection of places and restaurants you have been with each other or alone. A shared biography of iPhone- Instagram food pictures. It doesnt’ have to be glossy and polished with professional photography. It can be messy, incomplete and loosely tied. It would still hold already shared or hoped for shared joy.  Save this for a  quick weekend project on a cold winter day when you are at home while a warm pot of stew simmers on the stove.

The poem about “how to preserve love” in the cookbook made me smile,

Give as much as you can away for it dries up immediately when put on a shelf.

Mixed with kindness, it is your best recipe for happiness.

Thank you to Rachel Perrin, my most nurturing and steady mother-in-law, who shared this mid-1970s cookbook from Villa Rica Baptist Church in Georgia and taught me how to make biscuits, coconut pie, pecan pie, chicken and dumplings, meatloaf and so much more.

Happy cooking and sharing everyone,

Hungryphil

 

Turkish Red Onion Salad

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I want to remember this recipe because it was so light, bright and delicious. The recipe came from a Try the World Box. Remember it with me!

The addition of Sumac made this otherwise plain Tilapia Fish Sandwich, Turkish. Although it was included in the box, you can get Sumac in any Middle Eastern or South Asian grocery store. The spice looks red but instead of heat, it imparts a lemony brightness to dishes.

I am not a big raw onion fan, however, this “salad” was so flavorful and versatile that it’s worth keeping in mind for any grilled meats or sandwiches. Here is my variation of the recipe (I didn’t have the kind of vinegar or herb called for in the original recipe):

Turkish Red Onion Salad

  • 2 red onions thinly sliced

  • 1 medium cubed tomato

  • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

  • Juice of one lemon

  • 1 tablespoon good extra virgin olive oil

  • 1 teaspoon salt

  • 2 teaspoon vinegar (whichever kind you prefer)

  • 2 teaspoons Sumac

Mix in a bowl and let sit. Serve with your grilled or fried, fish or chicken.

The lemon and vinegar tempers the onion and adds brightness. The sumac amplifies the brightness with an almost floral note. Combined with the mayonnaise on the toasted baguette and flaky fish it made a worthy and fancy fish sandwich.

Dear vegetarian friends, I bet it would be tasty on a grilled eggplant sandwich too.

Try it and let me know what you think!

Wishing you all happy eating,

Hungryphil

 

5 Food Lessons from Paris in June

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Despite the sin of blogging an event weeks later, here I am. To me, my summer travels are still fresh and worth reliving, even if just to extend the trip a bit longer. Here are five lessons I learned.

1. Pastries, desserts, macarons are experiences of contradiction. Light and airy yet decadent and buttery. Sweets are not only sweet but flavorful. I can taste the butter, the fruit, the flavorings. In Paris, contradiction is sweet!

2. Location, location, location. During a food tour in Paris, we visited a cheese shop. The origin of each cheese variety, the type of milk, and the name was clearly labeled. The region of the cheese is part of the taste and experience. In France, location really matters. Sadly, I don’t know where all my food comes from.

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3. Taking cooking classes was a humbling experience that helped me appreciate the simplicity of ingredients and complexity of skill. A baguette is made with flour, salt, water, and yeast. That’s it. No butter. 4 ingredients. A sequence of kneading, rising, kneading and rising, yields the crunchy on the outside, chewy soft on the inside bread that needs to be eaten within three hours. The master sauces class taught me the same lesson. Simple ingredients become unctuous sauces through appropriate sequences of heat, whisking, resting. In France, skill is respected and expected.

4.  Markets have a beautiful variety of fresh produce, meats and dairy products. If I were to shop there to make a meal, I don’t know how I would choose. Building a relationship with a favorite vendor would be the best way to decide, I suppose. Somehow, my local grocery store seems very impersonal now. Next summer, if in town, I’ll spend more time getting to know my local produce vendors. I’m reminded that fresh and local produce is imperfect, beautiful and tasty.

5. Long walks between cooking classes, lunch, dinner, snacks, and markets with a curiosity towards small things like the weeds on the banks of the Seine grounds Paris.  The idealized glittering image of Paris with its cathedrals, museums, palaces become gritty, real, and more beautiful in my eyes through the experience and perspective of weeds, trash, construction debry and hot summer sweat. The small things remind me that Paris is the home of many and not just an idealized tourist destination. I wonder if the beautiful floral weeds still live there.

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What a wonderful trip discovering the grand- the small, the light-the rich, the sweet- the salty, the delicious-beautiful contradictions in Paris.  The visit reminded me to notice the contradictions of textures and tastes, the location, the skill, the ingredients and the larger context. I hope to eat like a tourist everywhere, even at home.

 

 

 

 

Sheet Caking is a Grassroots Movement

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Food is a collective coping strategy. Funny. Sad. True.

Maybe cake is the answer. I want to yell into a cake now. Feels cathartic. But, is it okay to be a silent non-violent protester? How do we confront violence, fear, hate? With violence? With indifference? With cake? How do we react and do differently, instead of inverse mirroring? Meeting hate chant with peace songs?  We are told to ignore the bully and engage the victim in public hate instances. Do we do the same with a group of torch bearing, blood and soil chants? How do we invoke Popper’s paradox of tolerance of everything except intolerance? How do we address isolation and alienation that fuels such hot hate?

“Arendt’s understanding of the origins of totalitarianism begins with her insight that mass movements are founded upon “atomized, isolated individuals.” The lonely people whom Arendt sees as the adherents of movements are not necessarily the poor or the lower classes. They are the “neutral, politically indifferent people who never join a party and hardly ever go to the polls.” They are not unintelligent and are rarely motivated by self-interest. Arendt writes that Heinrich Himmler understood these isolated individuals when he “said they were not interested in ‘everyday problems’ but only ‘in ideological questions of importance for decades and centuries, so that the man […] knows he is working for a great task which occurs but once in 2,000 years.’” The adherents of movements are not motivated by material interests; they “are obsessed by a desire to escape from reality because in their essential homelessness they can no longer bear its accidental, incomprehensible aspects.”

For the full article got to: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/arendt-matters-revisiting-origins-totalitarianism/#!

Tina Fey is a talented comedian who did an excellent job to expose the absurd through the absurd. Her comments make me think, as a philosopher what can I say? I’m still thinking…………….in the meantime pausing and eating “sheet-caking” is something we can do together. Still thinking……………….

Here is a flag cake recipe from my favorite TV chef Ina Garten. The cake was moise and light, the frosting tangy and sweet and much appreciated. The fruit is my favorite part. Strawberry, kiwi, mango, peaches can be other versions of this cake. I’m not a natural baker but Ms. Garten’s recipes make it easy. If I can bake it, you can too. Remember to share. That’s the most important part!

Wishing you a safe and happy weekend,

Hungryphil

Pasta to and from Paris – American Airlines

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See any differences?

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I thought the shapes (bread, pasta, crackers), sauce quantity, herbs, salad components and of course packaging were different. Same meal, different directions. Makes me go……..hmmmmmm.

There is a lot of discussion about airplane food. Here are a few links you might enjoy.

http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/a9148/airplane-food/

http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/unsavory-airplane-food-truths/index.html

http://www.travelchannel.com/interests/food-and-drink/photos/airplane-food

Image from: “Why Airplane Food Tastes So Bad” (http://www.rd.com/health/wellness/airplane-food-tastes-curious-phenomena/)

 

 

Pierogi Fest 2017 – Second Visit

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For parents of school age kids, like me, back to school marks the end of summer, even if days are still long and the weather warm. For us, school starts this Thursday. There is both sadness and relief. This Monday I find myself already looking back at summer. How does summer end for you?

The scarcity of blog posts over the summer attest to the abundance of travel, fun, and food I enjoyed. Maybe by sharing these food stories with you, I can extend summer for just a bit longer.

Here is what I learned at this year’s Pierogi Fest (Whiting, Indiana, last weekend of July):

  • Saurkraut and mushroom pierogies are my favorite.
  • Fried pierogies are crispy but pan fried have the best of both worlds: chewy on one side and soft on the other.
  • Fried Oreos with ice-cream is surprisingly okay.

This was my second time at the event. Last year I wrote about it here.  Eating our way through various pierogi stalls continues to be a fun way to spend a summer evening in northern Indiana. Although Polish in invitation the event includes, Italian, Cajun, Latin and other global flavors, as well as music, dances, and crafts. Entry was free with a range of offerings to fit most budgets. There was a diversity of people that made the small Indiana town feel BIG.

http://www.pierogifest.net/

What are local summer festivals you enjoy? Why? How many times would you go before you get bored? I suppose it also depends on who you bring with you.  This year I was happy to have the company of  my beloved, my friends and my babies. The smiles say it all. I would go again.

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Ahhh….good summer memories. Thank you, dear readers, for helping me re-live them.

Wishing you an August with long beautiful shadows and slow time with your loved ones,

hungryphil

 

 

 

Edible Indy Story Follow-up: Dinner on the Farm at Prophetstown State Park

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It is so validating and reassuring when an event I anticipated and promoted lives up to my hopes. The story of dinner on the Farm was published in the recent summer issue of Edible Indy Magazine. Last Friday, Jim and I had dinner on the Farm prepared by Chef Lauren Reed. It was a wonderful experience. Dining in the 1920s reconstructed Sears Mailorder farmhouse living room complete with period-inspired china and cutlery gave the experience a time capsule feel. We met two lovely couples at our table and traded stories about places and hobbies we enjoy. The context and conversation were only outdone by the food. Chef Lauren did an excellent job showcasing the seasonal vegetables  She placed the vegetable on a pedestal of a crunchy phyllo-dough tart shell in one course. In another course, a slice of tender beef perched on top of goat cheese. There were stuffed, braised and sauced seasonal elements. She did amazing things with corn stuffed in peppers and corn pudding. The corn pudding and blueberry sauce would be wonderful on its own or paired with any meat. I’ll have to try it at home.

If you haven’t had the chance to try dinner on the farm, you still have time. What a delicious way to support a local treasure and learning resource. Check out the park and their website: http://prophetstown.org/#sthash.IDlGKnsK.dpbs

Wishing you sweet corn and juicy tomatoes,

Hungryphil

 

 

Whetstone Woodenware “Raising the Grain” – Edible Indy

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I’m so excited to share my interview just published in the winter issue of Edible Indy with John Whetstone at Whetstone Woodenware. Conversations like these restore my faith in human goodness and beauty. We have so much to learn from people who lovingly make things over and over again. Enjoy!

http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?i=356878&p=36

 

 

#edibleindy

#kindred