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peace out.

• 1 tomato (a nice viney one, if you can)
• 1 handful of chopped mushrooms (your choice here)
• basil (my basil plant, louie, recently passed and i forgot to get some more, but basil would have perfectly finished the dish)
• 2 eggs
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil
• baguette
• parmesan cheese
• orange juice

1. slice the tomato the wrong way into 5 or 6 nice, circular sections. not too thick, not too thin, just right.
2. cut a quantity of the baguette in half, drizzle some olive oil, add the cheese, toast.
3. on the cutting board, salt and pepper the mushrooms to taste and using your judgement (don’t worry, i trust you).
4. meanwhile, heat the olive olive oil in a flat pan and on high heat until the oil has the viscosity of water (µ~1 @20C).
5. add the tomates and mushrooms to the pan. take care to make sure the tomatoes are flat and fully in contact with the heating surface.
6. wait about 45 s and flip all the tomatoes, you can hassle the mushrooms as you see fit.
7. in another 45 s, remove everything from the pan, but leave all the oil and juices.
8. lower the heat to medium, and then crack the eggs and add them to the pan, leaving the yolks intact.
9. pour yourself some orange juice.
10. clean the cutting board and the knife.
11. remove the eggs from the pan.
12. enjoy.

i liked eating the whites of the eggs with the tomatoes and mushrooms while leaving the runny yolks for my baguette. take liberal sips of orange juice in between bites and reflect on the productiveness of your saturday thus far. i meant to include an excellent picture, but i ate it all before i remembered. the remains:

It is soft and spiced with ginger and orange, cinnamon and the sweetness of carrot. It has equal amounts of whole wheat flour and white flour. Shredded coconut and ground almonds make an appearance. Its cream cheese frosting, flecked with orange rind and flavored with rum, is rich and festive.

I learned that butter, honey, sugar, vanilla and milk, heated, browned and condensed into a glaze, is magnificent. After I made it, I kept thinking of excuses to eat the remainder. It’d taste good on yogurt. Or toast. Or, just off my finger. Finally I poured all of it onto the cakes.

Yes, the cake has both a glaze and a frosting. It’s opulent. It’s spirited. It’s three layers of fall, frosted. If I don’t look outside while I’m eating it, I can pretend that although the sky is blue it’s chilly outside, that trees are bright with color, that the smell of fallen leaves is in the air. I think about wearing scarves, and stepping on pine cones, and all the varieties of apples, and of course I think of pumpkins. I think of hot apple cider, and apple orchards, and warm pies. I think of that stretch on my parents’ street which looks like a painting when the trees turn orange and yellow and red. I think of how September always feels fresh, like the beginning, although I know it’s the first step towards winter. But I can’t shake it. I love the fall and I miss it so.

I miss seasons like I miss people. Is that horrible? Next year, I’m coming to America in the fall.

This is a three layer cake. I took one layer to my writing group dinner and stacked the other two. If you want to make only one cake, divide the recipe into thirds. Don’t be intimidated by the lengthy ingredient list; the cake is very much worth it.

Spiced Carrot Layer Cake
adapted from Saveur

I buy vegetables from the bhaji-wallas, who set up shop on the sidewalks. I know that the bhaji-walla near WIA club, carries “exotic” vegetables like broccoli, basil, cherry tomatoes and rocket lettuce, and that his corn is sweet. Once in a rare while, the bhaji-walla near Chandralok has excellent good avocados, but he’s also sold me awful ones before, so now I make him cut them right there, on the sidewalk, to show me that they really are a creamy green inside. Beets, tomatoes, onions, garlic, eggs- these are readily available at most corners in my area. But we have discovered that the “village eggs” (as opposed to the city eggs?) sold a bit far from us, have yolks the color of the setting sun. On Grant Road, vendors set up Bhaji Gully every day (except Sunday) – a large outdoor produce market- much like a farmers market in America.

We get grains, nuts, oils, imported goods like soy sauce or rice vinegar, and snacks, each from different stores. If I had no ingredients at home and wanted to make spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese, I’d have to visit three places. Or Crawford Market, which is a collection of wholesale stalls carrying both imported goods and local produce under one roof.

Or, if I lived close to Malad, perhaps I’d go to Hypercity. Produce, cheeses, imported and Indian cereals, wine, beer, liquor, dals, aachars, every variety of rice imaginable, Indian and imported spices, eggs, food coloring, Pepperidge Farm cookies and Britannia cumin crackers, meat, sauces, frozen dinners, packaged dinners- it’s all there. We pushed our shopping cart through wide, well-lit aisles and picked up a pumpkin, Maraschino liquor, and a sweet-lime pickle. There’s also a section devoted to Waitrose products. Imported pastas, bread flour, tapenades, coffees, cookies, biscuits, canned beans, canned fish, sun-dried tomato spreads, and fancy olive oils and balsamic vinegars are what I remember seeing.

On the ground floor, they also sell pans and kitchen utensils; upstairs, though we didn’t visit, is a Crossword bookstore and electronics department. Oh, on the ground floor there’s even a counter selling diamond jewelry.

It was amazing to see this kind of grocery store in India, but also disorienting, because the system here is so different. On one hand, how convenient, especially for people who work long hours and might not have help at home (like much of America).

Yet, I realize I’ve gotten used to the fact that there are specific stores, or sidewalk stalls, where I’ll find my goods. I like knowing who’s selling the best corn and cherry tomatoes. At Hypercity we bought a bagful of tomatoes because we had planned to make a sauce later, and since it was a Sunday, bhaji-wallas weren’t working. Picking through the glossy pyramid, we noticed many yellow tomatoes, and bruised tomatoes, and it was with difficulty that we filled our bag with unblemished produce. That’s not a problem I have at a vegetable stall, where the produce is generally fresh. Later, we found that the beets and pumpkin we bought at Hypercity had no flavor, at all.

(I just spoke to BombayFoodie, who said that Hypercity’s produce is of much lower quality than what one can find elsewhere but they have priced out all the street side vendors in her area. In her area, there’s no other option of a place to buy vegetables, so now she makes a special trip to a market further away to get her produce.)

This sounds like the beginnings of the convenience versus quality problem- what organizations and people in America are trying to reverse by encouraging people to eat locally, shop at farmers markets, etc. instead of at chain grocery stores. America also has to contend with industrialized farms and genetically modified produce. In India, the logistics between farmers and consumers is a larger problem- Hrishikesh said that at a logistics seminar he attended some time ago, he learned that half of what is produced by farmers in India spoils before it reaches a consumer. Perhaps larger grocery stores (like Hypercity, Reliance Fresh and Nature’s Basket) are attempting to streamline the process and cut down on the middle men and also on wastage, but that doesn’t explain the poor quality of produce.

In a sense, Bombay already has a “farmers market” system- comprised of the vendors on the sidewalks, Crawford Market, and Bhaji Gully. These might not be as welcoming and easy to navigate as the Union Square Greenmarket, and they are not organized in the American sense- there are no pretty labels identifying the farms from which produce comes.  But, these vendors are a system that has been working well.

Hypercity is not the only grocery store in Bombay; Reliance Fresh and Godrej Nature’s Basket are also there, but on a much, much smaller scale. I think Reliance Fresh is pretty awful but Nature’s Basket, although the regular produce doesn’t look that fresh, often has a good selection of packaged Trikaya Agriculture produce- like Brussels sprouts, pea shoots and thyme.

People here are starting to become aware of eating locally and sustainably. The Mumbai Organic Farmers and Consumers Association has started a plan called Hari Bhari Tokri, that seems to be following the model of a C.S.A., pairing consumers with farmers to cut out middlemen, encourage consumers to eat locally, and encourage farmers to grow what consumers will buy. Hrishikesh and I signed up for the winter season, which begins in early November. I think it will be interesting to cook seasonally with mostly Indian vegetables, like snake gourd (padval), and flat beans (papdi).

Lately we’ve been in town quite often on the weekends, and our days loom ahead of us, giant, empty spaces to fill. Sunday morning at 7, we went on a nature walk with the Bombay Natural History Society in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The park was so green, and since we were walking on BNHS private property, free from litter. However, the group on the walk was large and unwieldy and therefore took a while to mobilize.

But we walked through streams, which, after I resigned myself to it, was refreshing and fun, and got caught in a shower.

Sam Sifton’s creamy scrambled eggs are a revelation. After trying them, I truly have difficulty imagining how I ate regular, tougher scrambled eggs. These eggs are satiny and bright with lemon and the mildest bite of silky scallion.

We make these fairly often, mostly on lazy mornings in Alibaug, when the sun is too strong to do much besides recline and read, or submerge in the pool. These eggs take minimal exertion but to get them right, it’s still important to pay close attention. We pour the egg mixture into the pan and with our wooden spatula, make pretty swirls by pushing them all over the pan while they cook on low heat, but as soon as the first curds form, we add the lemon-cilantro mixture, swirl for another minute, and turn off the heat. The eggs continue cooking in their own heat, you see, so over cooking them in the pan will lead to the type of torn, rubbery eggs I can’t believe I ever ate. A little vigilance on a weekend morning produces such rewards.

We pair these with Sifton’s hash browns; Hrishikesh loves the idea of cooking in ghee (clarified butter). He wants to cook everything in ghee- literally, everything. I try to prevent him from doing this. Sam Sifton was having trouble making hash browns without burning his potatoes and asked the chef at Henrietta’s Tavern, Peter Davis, the secret behind that establishment’s “thick and crusted, brown and nutty” hash browns. He replied: ghee. Hrishikesh did a victory dance when he heard this. A victory dance for ghee lovers everywhere.

“Butter is a fat: a stick of milk solids bound with emulsified oil, suspending some water,” says Sifton, who explains that when you heat butter in a pan, it first foams, then browns, then finally, burns. He learns from Davis that by clarifying the butter- (removing the milk solids)- you can “heat the butter to a higher temperature without burning, make it hot enough to crisp your potatoes and allow the sugars within them to caramelize, to turn into crust.

These hash browns in ghee are buttery and crispy. (Recipe for clarifying butter is below. Or, you can probably find ghee at a specialty store like Whole Foods or an Indian or Pakistani grocery).

Scrambled Eggs with Lemon and Green Onions (or scallions)
adapted (liberally) from The New York Times

2 tablespoons ghee or unsalted butter
4 green onions, white and green parts finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon (or Indian lime) juice
6 large eggs
4 tablespoons milk

1. Heat 2 tablespoons ghee or butter in a nonstick pan until hot and foaming. Add the green onion, lower the heat, and cook gently for two minutes, then add the garlic, cilantro, salt and pepper, stir carefully to combine and cook for another minute. Add the lemon juice and cook for 30 seconds more, then remove the contents of the pan into a small bowl, and do not wipe off the pan.

2. Break the eggs into a small bowl, pour in the milk and mix together. Heat the pan on high for a minute, pour in the egg mixture, reduce the heat to low and stir gently with a wooden spoon. Continue to cook slowly, until the eggs begin to form into curds. Add the lemon-scallion mixture and continue to cook for an additional minute or so, until the eggs are pillowy. Season to taste. Serves 2.

Hash Browns cooked in Ghee (Clarified Butter)
from the New York Times

4 medium potatoes

7 tablespoons unsalted butter

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

1. Peel the potatoes and place them in a large pot of cold water. Set over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium high and cook until you can poke a bamboo skewer through a potato, 40 to 50 minutes, being careful not to overcook. Drain and set aside to cool and dry completely, preferably overnight in the refrigerator.

2. Meanwhile, clarify the butter by melting it in a small saucepan over medium heat. When foam forms, use a spoon to remove and discard it. Cook, skimming, until the butter stops bubbling. Take care not to brown it. Strain through a fine sieve or cheesecloth and reserve. You should have about 5 tablespoons.

3. Heat a cast-iron or heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat. Grate the potatoes on the large side of a box grater into a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper and mix lightly. Add 3 tablespoons butter to pan, swirl until it begins to melt and add the shredded potatoes. Cook until golden brown and crusted on the bottom, almost (but not quite) burned in parts, about 15 minutes.

4. Use a wide spatula to flip the potatoes, or quickly invert the pan onto a dinner plate and gently slide them back into the pan. Add remaining butter around the sides of the potatoes and cook the second side until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Cut into wedges or spoon onto plates. Serve with eggs, grilled meats, toast and plenty of jam.

Serves 6. Adapted from Peter Davis at Henrietta’s Table, Cambridge, Mass.

Soup. Especially blended soup. Is there anything more boring? A bunch of vegetables, boiled to death and pureed. Soup  takes the joy out of eating. Non-soup meals have distinct flavors and smells and smooth, creamy, and crunchy textures, whereas soup, for the most part, is one temperature, one texture, and an amalgamation of flavors that generally taste a better when not beaten into each other.

(That said, I do like beet and celery soup.)

Non-blended soups have a bit more promise. I like tom-yum soup, and other, similar herby, brothy soups. I like thick curries with vegetables bobbing around. I dislike minestrone soup, where both the pasta and vegetables are generally mushy and/or chalky (peas in minestrone soup? chalky).

I’m talking so long about soup because I joined an online cooking-book club, called This Book Makes Me Cook, where every month we read a book and make a dish inspired by it. This month’s book was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, and it inspired me to make soup. Gazpacho soup. A soup that some (my husband) may argue is more of a salad.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society is an epistolary novel set in 1946 about an author, Juliet, who starts communicating with a group of people from The Channel Islands, a British Territory occupied by Germany during World War II. The members of this group write to her about how their book club inspired hope and joy and friendship and learning under the bleak period of German occupation. Juliet writes back with questions and they talk about various shared loves.

I didn’t enjoy the book because I found the characters’ voices irritating. Every letter was a bit too charming or touching or sad or sweet. I wanted to like the book but I just ended up annoyed, and then annoyed that I was annoyed.

However, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society did inspire me to make soup…sort of. The book hadn’t mentioned much food, except a hidden, roasted pig, and a pie made from potato peels. Basically, food was extremely difficult to come by due to the German Occupation on the Island. Hrishikesh mentioned that the book he’s reading, M.F.K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf, is about cooking during World War II; I decided to look through that for other recipes the Gurensey society “might” have cooked, and in addition to enjoying Fisher’s prose, I found a recipe for wartime Gazpacho. Simply: mashed tomatoes, herbs, garlic, lemon and oil, pounded together, a sprinkling of bread crumbs to thicken the soup into a meal, and the addition of chopped bell pepper, onion, and cucumber.

I tinkered with it a bit, consulting Alice Water’s recipe also, and in the end settled on a soup that was more of, as Alice says, a “liquid salad.” That is, a bouquet of fresh flavors and textures, bright and pretty, resting in a puddle of tomato juice. In this gazpacho, it’s possible to taste the fine, fruity olive oil, the additions of sweet yellow corn and bursts of cherry tomatoes, and a tangle of herbs, in each heaping spoonful.

Gazpacho is obviously perfect for summer, and versatile- I omitted cucumber and added corn. It’s delicious, and I’d love to make it again, even though it is soup.

Gazpacho
adapted from M.F.K. Fisher and Alice Waters

1 pound tomatoes, halved horizontally
4 green onions, white and green parts finely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped into tiny cubes
1/2 yellow bell pepper, chopped into tiny cubes
1.5 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup corn kernels
1 cup slivered basil
3/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1-2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
juice of 1 lemon (or 2 Indian limes)
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Over a bowl, grate the cut sides of the tomatoes on the medium holes of a grater until only the skin is left. Discard the skin. If you would like the remove the seeds, pass the pulp through a strainer (I didn’t remove the seeds).

2. In a mortar and pestle, pound together the garlic, lemon juice, a tablespoon each of parsley and basil, salt, and a dribble of olive oil.

3. In a mixing bowl, mix together the tomato pulp and breadcrumbs. Then mix in the pounded garlic/herb/lemon juice, and the rest of the olive oil. Finally, add the bell peppers, green onions, cherry tomatoes, corn kernels, basil and parsley to the tomato pulp, mix well, and taste for salt and pepper. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Koh, the Intercontinental’s new Thai restaurant, is chef Ian Kittichai‘s newest venture.

Quick Review:

The screen printed Thai script, deliciously loopy and curled, and the graffiti-esque renderings of people on the wall were trendy, but the long curved panels of shimmer on the ceiling made me feel as though I was in a tunnel. The hostess at the front desk told us to wait for 5 minutes while she answered the ringing phone and took the reservation of another party- so we wandered around the lobby of the Intercontinental. After we were seated, menus in hand, it took another 10 minutes for a waiter to approach us- but let’s put this down to a new restaurant trying to find its rhythm.

The first thing we tried was the one item we didn’t order: two steaming bowls of corn gumbo, delivered to our table as mushroom soup. The soup was a soft blend of corn and cream swirled with slivers of kaffir lime leaves, chile oil and a concentrate of basil, making each bite a revelation of flavors. We were happily impressed.

Going off recommendations from Brown Paper Bag and Mumbai Boss, we ordered the Tom Klong (mushroom soup), yellow bean glazed eggplant, and hot stone sticky rice.

The enoki, shitake and button mushrooms in the soup were pretty to look at, making it puzzling that the soup tasted like a cross between lemon and tamarind. Similarly, the eggplant – cut length-wise, with drizzled paste and grill marks both glistening enticingly- looked like a hefty promise of delicious, but the paste tasted like liquid sugar, caramel gone wrong. The hot stone sticky rice, with flavors more Chinese than Thai, was also unremarkable. And please, avoid the overly sweet marhon appetizer of pickled diakon mashed with peanuts, atop mini bites of fruit.

However, the Thai red curry, which came to the table bubbling in a paper cone of sorts, atop a tea light candle, was spicy and refreshingly thin. And the coconut cheesecake was airy. But at Koh’s steep price of Rs. 4000 for the two of us, without drinks, I’d choose stir-fried enoki mushrooms, morning glory with yellow bean paste, and Pad Thai at Thai Pavilion any day.

I was singing Gillian Welch’s Wayside/ Back in Time last week, driving my brother crazy. I love that song, and I love peaches. Listening to it always reminds me of my friend Elana performing it on stage, when we were in college, and her soft, wise voice.

Elana and I talked for a good hour on last week, which was wonderful. We weren’t in the same state, but at least we shared a timezone, and a lovely morning on the phone.

We graduated four years ago and we’re both in places we would have never imagined.

Two weeks ago, before I left for America, I went to my nani’s house to have peaches for lunch. Nani’s a true-blue fruit buyer: she particular and knows the best vendors for any fruit. Although it pains her swollen legs to walk much, she’ll make special trips to get her lychees, or peaches, or strawberries.

Nani made me this fantastic dessert of peaches and swirls of cream, sprinkled with cinnamon. She watches cooking shows in the afternoon, where she collects ideas- did you know you can make a lampshade out of a watermelon? Yeah, either did I.

Something new: my brother is going to start contributing recipes onto the blog. He lives in Baltimore, really close to a farmer’s market, but terribly far from me. His approach to cooking is much more fearless and creative than mine.

I’m leaving America today, until next year. Going back to my husband, and to getting drenched on our monsoon walks.

stir fry is a great because it’s quick and easy to make with any number of ingredients. also, it incorporates two very fun things: stirring and frying.

stir fry was to be my dinner tonite but, unfortunately, i napped through dinner time. i decided to make it anyway so i’d have a savo(u)ry lunch tomorrow. of course, there are many different versions of stir fry, and you can make it to your taste, but here’s mine. i won’t bother to include exact measures of each ingredient i used because i never pay attention and so i don’t know. use your good judgement and you’ll be fine.

• half a decently-sized eggplant
• a handful of mushroom
• some broccoli
• two scallion stalks
• some celery stalks
• celery heart (keep this separate from the more plebeian stalks)
• garlic (3 cloves?)
• some sort of chili pepper, i used half a jalapeno
• salt
• sesame seeds
• basil
• vegetable oil
• soy sauce

1. cube the eggplant.
2. keep the eggplant in a bowl, lightly salt and mix, keep to the side.
3. chop everything else up.
4. pour off any water that comes out of the eggplant
5. cover the eggplant in a little bit of oil, mix.
6. leave the kitchen, turn on some music.
7. heat oil in your pan or walk (high).
8. once the oil is about as viscous as water and is just beginning to steam, add the garlic, chili pepper, basil, scallion, and sesame seeds.
9. cook, stirring attentively, until the sesame seeds pop.
10. add the eggplant and stir so that everything is well mixed.
11. cover the pan and lower the heat to medium.
12. every now and then stir the mixture and check on the eggplant. i like to continue this until the smallest pieces of eggplant are just becoming soft all the way through.
13. add the celery and mushrooms.
14. add a few splashes of soy sauce.
15. mix and cover again.
16. wait the same amount of time as the previous cover cycle.
17. add the broccoli, mix, cover.
18. give it two more mixing cycles.
19. eat.

you can also separately boil rice and add it in. i would increase the initial amount of oil added and then add the rice between steps 13 and 14 and also increase the amount of soy sauce splashed.

i chose the times above (after gathering much empirical data, clearly) because i like my eggplant to be soft and squishy; the broccoli juicy and crisp. if you have another vegetable texture preference, you can adjust the cooking time accordingly.