We Just Figured Out Blue's Food

I can get so much mileage out of that post title. ^__^

My roommate, tired of her food getting "lost" behind, say, a gallon of milk and not being discovered again until it had started to smell, decided last night that we should separate out our food by shelf.

Our refrigerator looked pretty full to begin with; but as it turns out, 90% of the stuff in there is actually hers.

When I separated my food out onto its shelf, I discovered I had the following inventory:

1 jar peanut butter (store brand)
1 jar strawberry preserves (store brand)
1/2 loaf whole wheat bread (store brand)
Almost-empty squeezy jar of mustard (store brand)
1 jar lime-ginger pickle (Priya brand)
1 block sharp cheddar cheese (store brand)
1/2 block sharp cheddar cheese (it was a 2-for-1 sale)

Admittedly, in the freezer I have enough sabzi and gobi aloo to last another ten days, and a giant "family-size" bag of brussels sprouts which I portion out and eat along with my PBJ or cheese sandwiches.

I also have half a box of pancake mix sitting on top of the refrigerator, along with some instant oatmeal that I am not actually going to eat because I discovered too late that "sugar free" actually meant "coated in aspartame," and I can't stand the taste.

If the sabzi contains broccoli, potatoes, chickpeas, and green-and-yellow beans, and the gobi aloo contains... well, gobi and aloo... am I getting a balanced diet?

Calcium Equals Strong Bones, Right?

So I'm doing better and walking more quickly... and I'm absolutely starving.

I have plenty of dal, thanks to my slow-cooker, but when I was driving home from class today all I could think of was "I want a cheese sandwich..."

A few hours and three cheese sandwiches later, the block of cheese is nearly gone.

Is this 'cause I'm growing bones back together?

Also: 500 bonus points for the first person to name the source of the following quote:

She finished my cheese. I had this brand-new brick of cheese. She devoured it.

An Ode To My Slow-Cooker

Oh my slow-cooker
You were such a nice gift
By helping me cook lentils
You help me live a life of thrift.

Oh my slow-cooker
You are so freakin' sweet
Add water in the morning
When I come back, there's food to eat.

Oh my slow-cooker
You neither overboil
Nor leave those stains on my stove
'Cause I would never stir often enough, and dal goo would run out of the sides of the pot, and leave those stains that kind of looked like foam but were actually really hard and required me to scrub at my range top with a sponge which really was too much work and (oh wait, I've got it) toil.

And you make the dal have such a lovely soft texture...
Yum.

I Made Idlis! I Also Tried To Make Gulab Jamuns, But They Didn't Turn Out.

I haven't done a cooking post in a long time. Mostly because I haven't cooked any new recipes recently. I made a delicious karhi yesterday, which prompted my roommate to offer to pay me to cook dinner for her every night, forever.

And today, for the first time, I made idlis.

Technically, I didn't make idlis. Technically, I added water to an idli mix and steamed it in an egg poacher (which Bitterlemons had suggested I use instead of shelling out for an idli pan).

But when they were done, they looked like idlis and they tasted like idlis, which made me very, very happy. (To be fair, they weren't as fluffy as the idlis I got in India, which I am assuming was the fault of the idli mix and not the egg poacher. I suppose I should get a grinder and start making my own batter if I want authentic fluffiness.)

I also made chutney and sambar, both of which I have made before. Sambar turned out a little thick, but that was okay.

And then... well, when I was at the desi grocery, there was a box of gulab jamun mix sitting right next to the box of idli mix. It only cost seventy-nine cents, and I do love gulab jamuns... of course, the idiocy of trying to recreate a dessert made from fresh paneer and rose essence by adding water to some white powder that can be purchased for $0.79...

The results were disgusting, to say the least, and I managed to fill the entire apartment with smoke during the "deep-frying" part. From now on, if I want gulab jamuns, I'm going to have to buy the ones that come in the tin can.

The Aerogarden: WANT

Yes, I know.

At $150, too expensive by half.

And I'm also anti-consumerism.

BUT OMG WANT.

What is it? An Aerogarden. An indoor herb garden. There are pretty, pretty pictures over at The Machinist. But beware -- you might end up wanting one too.

Christmas Won't Be Christmas Without Any Garam Masala Cake!

It's so dreadful to be poor.

Otherwise, I would totally be baking this awesome desi Christmas cake I just read about on a SepiaMutiny comment.

But (alas) I have neither nuts nor dried fruit, neither baking powder nor baking soda, and of course no cocoa powder or red wine.

But maybe one of you can make it and tell me how it tastes.

The Unexamined Life, or: I Should Seriously Get Up Early Enough To Cook Eggs

I've been trying to do an exercise, for the past couple of days, to help me with my... um... "life coaching."

(I'm not an actual life coach, nor do I have one. I just read books written by life coaches and steal their ideas.)

I feel like I am at a point in my life where I could go anywhere, and do anything (albeit at the entry-level), and it's a bit overwhelming.

The one path I steered myself towards, for a number of years -- until right before I left for Hyderabad, in fact -- was becoming a university faculty member. A few things happened last summer, however, that suggested this might not be a workable path for me. (I might write about them in a later post.)

So, to borrow a video game metaphor, I feel kind of like I'm in SMB3, World 7, and I just went down a big green pipe and lost a life, and now I'm at the beginning of the level again, Small Mario with no powerups, and I don't know which pipe to jump into.

And I thought "Okay, I'll borrow an activity from Martha Beck. I'll write down what I would like an ideal "ordinary" day in my future life to be like, and see what adjustments I need to get myself there."

The beginning was easy.

Morning: Feed and pet kitty, do yoga, eat hot breakfast with coffee.

The reason writing down an ideal morning was easy was because it was pretty close to my actual morning. Right now I really do wake up, feed and pet my kitty, and do yoga. (Before I hear anyone snipe at me about how I can't possibly understand yoga, let me mention that due to my theatre training, I have been taking yoga classes off-and-on for the past five years -- and yes, I know my classes are nowhere near how yoga is practiced in India.)

The one part I'm missing is the hot breakfast part, which -- although I love my eggs and toast -- is time-consuming and makes a mess of the kitchen. Usually my breakfast is a granola bar eaten in the car. Still, in an ideal world I'd have eggs or oatmeal (or idlis and chutney, if I had an idli-maker) for breakfast every morning.

Anyway. With my morning written out, I set out to describe the next part of my day.

I drew a blank.

Where would I be? In an office? In a classroom? Writing a novel in a ridiculously chi-chi Manhattan loft?

Certain things pop out at me, in my vision of the "ideal" future. I want to sell my car and switch to biking and public transportation. This means living in a certain type of city. I also want to have a garden and grow my own vegetables, which seems to mean living in a different type of place (or a place which supports community gardens). And I seem to want both of these despite the fact that I've killed every plant I've tried to grow, and I haven't been near a bicycle in fifteen years.

But the job part is blurry.

It may have something to do with the fact that I've always looked at my jobs as things to be gotten through before I can get down to the business of living my life. So perhaps I can't imagine, yet, a career that isn't based on "getting through the day so you'll have enough money to pay rent."

I also made an unnerving discovery while visualizing my "ideal" life. In all my images, cooking or biking or reading or cleaning the kitchen (yes, on an ideal day I would clean my kitchen), I'm always alone. Well, alone plus cat.

I can rationalize it by saying "well, you've never lived with a significant other, or with children, so you don't have the sense of the reality of those images to put into your fantasy." Which is true. I have no idea what it would be like to come home to a family for whom I was responsible, or a husband with whom I was sharing and negotiating our mutual-linked lives.

Another unnerving discovery is that my "ideal" life seems to be just as tightly frugal as my current one, and it seems to take place in a tiny studio apartment. Is this my way of combining fantasy with truth, or a fear of dreaming for anything larger?

No, You Don't Understand. It's Cheaper. Seriously.

So a few days ago the NYT ran an article called "A High Price For Healthy Food."

The premise was that fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains cost more than their frozen, partially-hydrogenated-soybean-oil-filled equivalents.

The research was a little skewed because they compared cost per calorie, instead of, say, cost per nutrient or vitamin.

Based on [scientist Adam Drewnowski's] findings, a 2,000-calorie diet would cost just $3.52 a day if it consisted of junk food, compared with $36.32 a day for a diet of low-energy dense foods. However, most people eat a mix of foods. The average American spends about $7 a day on food, although low-income people spend about $4, says Dr. Drewnowski.

(And Blue spends even less than that.)

The article, with its grabby headline and disappointing follow-through ("you mean I can spend $3 on a Cinnabon and get all my calories for the day, but I would have to buy $25 worth of broccoli?"), garnered a host of argumentative comments.

They tended to fall into two categories:

A. "It's not that hard to eat healthy, simple food on a limited budget. Buy vegetables in season and eat a lot of beans and rice."

and

B. "Eew! I'm not going to eat beans and rice like some starving college student!"

One commenter even said she could not in good conscience subject her children to bland "bean paste." (Why does she think there's a paste involved?)

Finally, at comment #102, we get:

Has anyone heard of Indian food?
It’s by far the cheapest thing you can eat, and every meal is packed with veggies. for $5 you can make a meal for 4 people, with just a head of cauliflower and some frozen beans and a cup of rice.

Agreed. And I'll see your $5 and lower you to $2.

Before I taught myself how to cook, I used to buy cheap pre-made crap. Ramen noodles, frozen pizzas, high-sodium Carl Buddig "thin meat."

Even though I shopped for bargains, it was still sixteen times as expensive as my current food budget.

Now I eat a diet that is based on lentils, rice, and cheese, with at least one seasonal vegetable added to each dish. (Emphasis on seasonal, team.)

I don't feel like a starving graduate student. I mean, I am a poor graduate student, but I'm nowhere near starving. In terms of culinary delights, I feel quite rich. I have cardamom and chilis and fenugreek. Every meal is a flavor adventure. (One night, I excitedly explained to my roommate about all the different kinds of lentils I had in my cupboard and the way they all made different tastes. She was thoroughly impressed.)

And I bet that if Dr. Adam Drewnowski analyzed the calories-per-penny in my lunches and dinners, it would rank right up there with the Cinnabon and the Pop-Tart.

But (sigh) that would have spoiled the news story.

I Love You, Tiffin-Carrier: Part II

I took my tiffin-carrier to the university today. (I'll be starting temp work on Wednesday, so today I was in my department going to meetings and saying hello to people.)

The shorvedar shaljam I had made the night before (and microwaved to boiling before I left this morning) stayed hot, and was still reasonably warm when I ate it four hours later.

"Is that an Indian dish?" a friend asked me.

"Yes," I said. "It's an Indian dish in an Indian dish."

^__^

Tasting Turkey (once more, for the last time)

Well, the Turkey Day fun has ended, at my house. For those of you curious to know, I did taste a small piece of turkey, despite my confirmed vegetarianism. It was because it looked so much like all the delicious turkeys served at childhood Thanksgivings (all happy turkeys look alike), and I wanted to see if it tasted as good as my nostalgia.

But, although it tasted like turkey, just the little bit was more than enough. I think I've lost my taste for meat, which is fine.

On the list of "things for which I am thankful:"

Goblet fold. (If you don't know what that is, you've never worked "fine dining" food service.)

The fact that sweet potato casserole contains marshmallows. And, this year, the fact that sweet potato casserole contains sweet potatoes.

The reminder, while eating the sweet potatoes, that it's almost turnip season and I'll soon get to make this delicious recipe.

The kheer turning out well.

I should do some kind of crazy meme and demand y'all tell me what you're thankful for, but ohmygoodness it's post-prandial rest time.

But tomorrow... tomorrow, have I got a story for you. Wait and see.

Editor's Note: 500 bonus points for the person who can identify the "once more, for the last time" quote. If you want a hint, it's also from a Russian author. ^__^

It Took Two Tries, But We Had Kheer!

Another example of "multiculturalism at its finest:"

A white woman in a blue salwar getting kheer-making tips from an expat from Gambia (who has also lived in a lot of other places, but not India). In the interest of full disclosure, he actually made the kheer. This was after he came in, looked into the pot I had started, said "this isn't going to turn out," and asked if I had any more rice so we could start over.

When it was done, it tasted exactly like I remembered. However, in the ultimate dessert battle of Kheer Vs. Pie, it lost (and lost badly). I guess cardamom and raisins just can't hold up to the charms of whipped cream and pumpkin filling. ^__^

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am certainly the only person in my hometown -- perhaps the only person in the state -- who is wearing a blue jute silk salwar for Thanksgiving dinner. But... clothing that pretty shouldn't stay in a box.

We're also having kheer for dessert, along with the pumpkin pie. (That is, if it turns out. It ought to, unless there are unforeseen complications in the whole "boiling rice in milk" thing.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I Miss Amul

American ice cream just doesn't taste as good as Indian ice cream.

(That's all. I mean, that's all I've got for today.)

The Best Thing I Ever Tasted

Twenty-four hours. Three planes. Not enough legroom even for a person whose legs are barely three feet long.

And when I got back, a kitty who seemed almost disbelieving. She spent the evening staring at me dubiously, but I found her snuggled up against my legs when I woke up this morning.

I'm at my parents' house for Thanksgiving week (before I go back to seven weeks of temping -- the spring semester starts at the end of January, and I've got to earn some money before then). This morning I went down to see what I could cook myself up for breakfast.

It ended up being an omelette with cheese and tomato and chili powder (you can take the girl out of Andhra, but...) and an apple.

I had asked my mother to make sure there were apples.

And that apple, so fresh and so cool and so crisp, was the best thing I had tasted in months. Better even than ladoos.

Welcome home.

All I Need to Know About Delhi I Learned from DesiPundit

I had a better day in Delhi yesterday. Found the Red Fort, and observed once again that, like Golconda Fort, wandering around made me feel like I was in a Legend of Zelda game. Guess the designers really, really loved India or something. I mean, with the "rupees" nod and all. ^__^

And I re-wandered Chandni Chowk, armed with one crucial piece of directional orientation: the "food tour" of Old Delhi, written by Rahul and linked to on DesiPundit (which was where I found it). I'm not sure if I found all the places Rahul writes about (in fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't), but I found Parantha Galli and had a sugar parantha (which was okay; the banana in syrup which accompanied it was much more interesting), and I had a very interesting chaat experience with a man who was selling what looked like croissants on ice.

"What are those?" I asked.

He said something which sounded like "dilli vada," though I'm not sure that's even a food.

"May I have one?"

He took one off of the ice and put it on a leaf plate. Then he went to each of his little pots and asked me if I wanted any of the following: chili, ginger, chutney, masala, etc. Of course I said "yes" to everything, because I thought they were all part of this particular chaat experience. However, when I finally tasted it, the explosion of contradicting flavors indicated that I probably shouldn't have asked that it be sprinkled with quite everything the chaat-wallah had on his cart.

Ah, well. Oh, and I'm off ladoos and onto jalebis. Actually, before that, I was off ladoos and onto gulab jamuns, but I had a hot hot hot jalebi fresh from the cooking vat last night and my entire being is consumed with the idea of how I can get another one. ^__^

Home-Cooked Food Makes Me Smile

For those following my travelogue, I'm now in Bangalore visiting friends. And staying in their lovely flat. Which means... home-cooked food.

To understand the immensity of such a jump (that is, from university mess food to... um... real food), I will remind you of what I've been eating for the past two months.

Mmmm.... brinjal goo....

Anyway. And in addition to all of this home-cookery goodness, I had my first taste of masala puri (and sev puri!) last night. With fresh coriander and fresh tomatoes. (Like Ashima, you'll see me in a few months trying to replicate this taste with Rice Krispies and barbeque sauce.)

The food -- all of it -- makes me smile. Am terribly happy.

Next on the docket: the post on ISKCON.

A Gallery, and a Gallery of Sweets

After I met my friend, we went to an art gallery to see a new showing by one of his friends, Poosapati Parameshwar Raju.

Since they were trying to save electricity, the gallery itself was completely dark when we went inside. Then the artist-friend turned on the lights. I gasped aloud. We were surrounded by larger-than-life calligraphic drawings, each one arresting in its sense of balance and grace, evoking Ganesh or Hanuman or Surya in simple, nearly-abstract strokes.

Raju drew a series of 250 aums, each one varying the lettering slightly so it became like that game of telephone, where the characters took on new meanings as they metamorphosed. One aum became a praying figure. One became a dancer. One became a diya.

Afterwards, my friend told me that it was his birthday today. I told him that I would have to buy him some sweets. Mostly, of course, I wanted an excuse to eat sweets. He took me to a sweetshop, and when I made some joke about not yet being able to name everything that was behind the counter, he started at one end and pointed at each row of sweets in turn and bought one of everything that I could not identify properly. Including this thing that looked like a jalebi but was actually... something else, like a super jalebi, and when I bit into it I started laughing aloud because eating it was just so fantastic. (Yes, I still don't remember its name. Which means I'll probably have to eat another one.)

And yes, despite it being his birthday, he ended up buying all of the sweets and refused to let me pay. On the other hand, he's currently playing a hero in a Telugu serial and is making more money daily than I did while I was temping. So I don't feel too bad, except that it was his birthday. ^__^

Plastic, or... what metal is that again?

I have a question about tiffin-carriers.

Essentially, I want one. When I was at my home university (and temping at the office) and packing lunches to save $$$, I would have to take two generic Tupperware containers (one for the rice or bread, one for the curry or dal) in an old grocery sack.

So I want a tiffin-carrier, and since I never saw one in any of the desi groceries I frequented, I will be buying it here.

Here's the question. Plastic or metal?

Plastic has gotten a bum rap lately because of that whole BPA thing. Naturally, I don't want anything leeching into my food (never mind all the BPA that must have leeched in when I carried it in Tupperware).

But what's the metal they use for the metal ones? And does it carry the danger of leeching harmful chemicals too?

Also, which is easier to clean, etc?

Thanks. ^__^

My Students Surprise Me

As I had hinted at earlier, I bought a box of sweets for my class.

Well, not for the whole class. For the group of students who showed up early on a Saturday morning to work on the set. They went out into the forest to chop down bamboo and everything. So I told the group that if they finished building a certain part of the set by Monday, I would give them ladoos.

On Monday they were almost done. They explained that they had worked through the evening on Saturday, and had set aside some time on Sunday to work, but had been recruited for another project in the department (the other faculty confirmed this). So I told them they could have the ladoos anyway.

And then they completely surprised me.

"Oh, no, ma'am. We can't take them."

"Why not?"

"You told us we had to finish building Prospero's hut. And the hut isn't finished."

They refused the ladoos completely. I was thoroughly impressed.

Watching People Eat

I’m not in the university guest house, at the moment. My room has been taken over by a gigantic physics convention. The person in charge of this convention wanted to rent more rooms than the university currently had available; and so the people furthest down the hierarchy were asked (no, told) to move out of the guest house for a week and make other arrangements.

So I’m in a backpackers’ hostel, in the city. And thrilled to be here. The university campus is peaceful and beautiful, but isolated. So I jumped at the chance to get away from the university… and, for that matter, away from the mess hall and its three rotating curries (bhindi, aloo and capsicum, and brinjal).

Anyway. I arrived at about 5:30 p.m. on the first sunny day in over a week. I put my things in the hotel room and took a moment to freshen up from the bus ride, and then flew down the stairs to start my evening’s adventure. Strangely, it looked as if the front desk clerk had “freshened up” as well. In the five minutes (okay, ten) it had taken me to re-braid my hair and reapply lipstick, he had combed his hair and put on a white embroidered cap. It almost looked as if he had put on a different shirt as well, but I couldn’t be sure.

I went out into a street that was on the cusp of twilight. The first thing I noticed was that nearly every man was wearing this same white cap (I know it's got a real name, but I can't find it on Google... I'll let one of you educate me ^__^). The second was that everyone – men, women, and children alike – were dressed in these gorgeous, sparkling things. The third, which I realized as I stepped into a group of people as they crossed a street and followed the group through to safety on the other side, was that everyone was congregating around a set of sweet-stalls set up at a prominent intersection.

Then I got it. It’s Ramadan, seconds from sundown, and they’re all about to break the fast.

There was such a sense of excitement in the air, which surprised me, because we are about two weeks into Ramadan already. Is there this excitement every evening? Of course, if I had spent the day fasting, I think I would be more than a little excited myself.

I didn’t watch to see the moment when the sun set. I wanted to, but it seemed like it would be prying into something very personal. It was enough to see the anticipation of these penultimate moments. So I turned and went onto a different road.

On this road, rows of electric lights drew me towards a giant Ganesha pandal (voted one of the top five pandals in the city, as the sign announced). This one had a dancing Ganesh instead of a seated one; his fingertip touched a fountain, and water poured over lotus flowers. This pandal also had a crowd of people and more coming from every direction.

They were doing puja and taking prasadam, only it seemed like the prasadam was an entire meal; rice, dal, and pooris. Plate after plate went out. I went closer, to see if money was exchanging hands, but whatever funds enabled this pandal to have a working lotus fountain (and be rated “top five in the city!”) were also enabling the pandal to feed this huge crowd for free.

Thus on one street, Muslims were breaking the fast; and around the corner, Hindus were taking prasadam. Everyone was eating. Everyone was happy. The sun set, and all around the city these glorious colorful lights came on. It was a perfect moment.