ceylon down the line.

Say what you will about his solo career, but Lionel Richie had some legendary moments with The Commodores.

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Seems like we have a lot to catch up on, you and I, but...maybe not. Let's see, Friday Mara and I made an extra big batch of jalfrezi sauce, with the idea being that I would use this as a component for the dinners I was serving on Saturday and Sunday. It's a great recipe, the most important tips being: if your final results don't taste right, it's either 1) not cooked long enough 2) not salted properly or 3) not buttery enough.

For Saturday I geeked out a little bit and made what I thought was going to be an "extra" curry, the Sri Lankan coconut thingie. Basically fried catfish in a coconut milk sauce featuring roasted coconut, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, and something else (beginning stages pictured above). But then two unexpected dinner guests showed up and the "extra" curry wasn't so extra anymore. I didn't even snag a picture of it before it got gone.

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Sunday I went to brunch. I don't think I've ever typed that sentence on this blog before. But it's true, that's what I did. The highlights for me were sweet potato biscuits, grits, and a deadly cranberry cake with a brandy-butter sauce.

Then I came home and kind of re-made Saturday night's dinner, but with pork subbing for the paneer. And instead of a Sri Lankan curry I did these roasted caulifower vada or pakora or bonda or pakoda or bhaji or something like that. Here it is with its two Thoroughly Repeatable friends, the tamarind-raisin chutney and a coriander-mint-yogurt chutney.

And here's the pork jalfrezi.

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tamarind chutney.

2 tbsp tamarind concentrate

1 cup hot water

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 cup palm sugar

2 fennel seeds, crushed

1/2 tsp cumin

Combine, and simmer for quite some time, maybe 45 minutes.

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