Tuesday, October 18, 2011
During the years we spent in Calcutta, India, my parents would plan impromptu trips to Digha, a small fishing town along the Bay of Bengal coast, only a few hours’ drive from Calcutta. I would emerge out of the car in school uniform and backpack to find my mother’s sticking her head through the wrought iron grill of our balcony shouting out to our chauffeur. “Don’t head back to the office,” she would scream out over the din of the city and street cricket matches, “Saheb (Sir) is coming home in a different office car. You’re coming to Digha with us; so go grab some clothes, tank up the car and be back here in an hour!” These trips were always my father’s idea and I never got an inkling of when one was coming until it was announced. He made his decision on the spur of the moment and we……
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
It’s not that I cannot bake; I just do not like to. Barring cooked tuna and sardines in any way, shape or form, I eat everything. I am allergic to eggplant, but that has never really quite stopped me from eating it anyway. I do my best to ignore the varying intensities of itchiness in my throat brought about by different varieties of eggplant. However, I do not have what is commonly understood as “an evergreen sweet tooth”, with just one exception – but I will save that for another day. Besides, to me, cake batter tastes better before baking than after, so I find it hard to see the point in even putting it into the oven. If it were not for the strong resistance to pollutants, toxins and probably common food contaminating bacteria that one invariably develops when they have spent years and years in India, eating all……
Saturday, April 9, 2011
I bought a pound of shrimp a couple days ago because it was on sale. K is very picky when it comes to shrimp — it cannot just be cooked any which way, the shrimp have to have a good sear on both sides, which pretty much eliminates a lot of Italian recipes and Indian curries. I had been craving polenta since I stole some from K when it came with his braised short-rib dinner at Grafton St. When I saw the cover of the latest “Real Simple” recipe collection with a pretty picture of a shrimp dish with crispy bacon and plum tomatoes over cheesy grits, I thought I could make something like that with polenta underneath instead of grits. That cover dish was my inspiration for this dinner, but I could not make it as is because K does not like tomatoes with shrimp (if he likes tomatoes in……
Saturday, April 9, 2011
I have been trying to restrict my intake of non-vegetarian food to only one meal a day. Usually that means eating fruit smoothies for breakfast and salads for lunch (look at my spring salad with honey-roasted butternut squash cubes and walnuts dressed with a lemon-pepper vinaigrette). But on days that I am home I can do some experimenting with new vegetarian dishes. One day I decided to find out what all the hype about steamed silken tofu was all about. Mainly it would give me another opportunity to try out my (then) new bamboo steamer. So of course, we do not generally have a lot of tofu on hand — K hates it, and I do not love it. But my Chinese friends go on and on about the silky texture and the velvety feel of silken tofu…so off I rush to Super88 to buy myself a brick of silken……
Sunday, January 30, 2011
I think I stopped blogging shortly after we adopted Oscar Schindler, our cat, which means it has been almost a year now. I thought about blogging from time to time… but just never got to it. My blog would just turn into another one of my many projects that I started with great zeal but abandoned somewhere along the way when I picked up one too many newer projects. I thought nobody would notice. But my friend Nick sent me a text-message one evening; He said, “Bring back The Whistling Pressure Cooker”. And so I will. Thanks Nick. I still cook. I even still take photos of the food I cook. Why should I stop blogging about it then? We were discussing making paneer from scratch over delicious dinner and desserts at Finale on Beacon St last night where we had gathered to celebrate Nelsa’s birthday. It comes out to……
Monday, July 5, 2010
The French do not believe in medium-rare, medium or (heaven forbid), well done. When you eat at an authentic French restaurant, you really only have two options: blue-rare or rare. If you ask for anything more cooked than that, upon careful observation, you will notice your waiter’s eyebrow rise just a little — a gesture of disapproval commonly used by French waiters and British butlers. The chef will consider you to be a lost cause and bring out that less-than-stellar piece of beef that had been set aside for an uncouth palate such as yours. After all, the way the chef sees it, why waste a prime piece of meat on someone that doesn’t know how to enjoy it? Besides, the well-done steak tastes almost like a sub-prime piece of meat anyway, so why not help it along a little? Of course, being a steak-snob was not my intention at……
Saturday, June 19, 2010
In Calcutta, a staple starter at Marwari weddings was pea soup. Liveried waiters would carry them around in porcelain cups and would offer a cup to anyone seen without a cup of soup or a glass of some beverage in their hand. My father has always been a big fan of pea soup. He says he finds it hard to turn down that any soup with such peppy green colour. I found a recipe for pea and mint soup in one of those over-priced recipe compilations that “Fine Cooking” keeps putting out. And of course I couldn’t resist tweaking it. Anyone with a blender, which is just about everyone that either cooks or makes cocktails – which should cover everyone in America – can make this. I used a tablespoon of store bought Indian mint chutney instead of fresh mint leaves. If you have neither then skip the mint and……
Saturday, June 19, 2010
K is not a huge fan of shrimp. But I am, mostly because on a night when I am tired and do not want to get entangled in a fussy dinner, I can easily pull out the package of frozen raw shrimp tucked away at the back of my freezer. While she shrimp is defrosting under running water in a colander, I can feed my kitty, change and pour myself a glass of crispy clear Austrian Gewurztraminer and put the miseries of the day behind me. I use a store-bought Tansoori spice mix for this recipe. Of course, I could make my own, but that would involve mincing the ginger and garlic, measuring out the seven different spice powders that tend to make people fear cooking Indian food. Sometimes even that is too much work. Recipe: Click here for printable recipe 10-12 medium-sized shrimp, peeled and deveined1/2 cup thick yoghurt1……
Saturday, June 19, 2010
I’m trying to get K to eat more vegetables. We’re still a long way away from doing “Meatless Mondays” but his meals have been more balanced than before. He just can’t seem to wrap his head around sweet pea soup for a light lunch (after a disgustingly heavy dinner the night before) or a loaded omlette for lunch – not that I consider eggs to be vegetarian. I have been slipping more and more veggies into our stir-fry dinners, and I am optimistic about getting him to eat cauliflower someday. K loves the parking lot across from us – the way it is so well maintained – while I look a little higher: at the pretty little porches that belong to the people that get to park their cars in Keith’s favourite parking lot with a tiny little charcoal grill in each one. Someday, I think, someday, I too will……
Friday, May 21, 2010
I made this for dinner last night… in under an hour, and am quite proud of myself for it. It is definitely worthy of serving to guests for a fancy dinner. Shaws has been selling pork-chops at unbeatable prices and we have been cashing in on the bargain. I bought a pork chop last week, and this week I bought two: one over an inch thick – which I used in this recipe – and the other thinner and to be the star of tomorrow night’s dinner. What I am most proud of is the fact that the meal was balanced with starch (buttered noodles), vitamins (baby bok choy) and protein (pork chop). It was big enough for both K and myself and the entire thing cost less than $6 to make! Now pork chops cannot be eaten medium-rare. They have to be medium to medium-well. For some people this……
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