save me.

Jamie Oliver would not be happy about this.

My field correspondent just sent these in. This is what I'm walking/flying into tomorrow. I tend to mentally roll my eyes when bloggers/commenters cheerily lament, "OMG! I gained five pounds just looking at these pictures!!!" I mean, call me a shitty person or whatever, but that sentence seriously diminishes the likelihood of me reading any more of what you're writing ("OMG! You are a shitty person!!!").

That said...OMG! ect ect ect. The real southern tuna noodle casserole is at its barely-functioning heart a technological marvel: take the above items, crash them together in a casserole dish, bake for oh I don't know how long, and you get this:

Not the strawberry pie, of course. That would really be a marvel of technology.

But that's not all!

To give some context, this next dish was created specifically for a family member who finds tuna noodle casserole too adventurous.

Not having been at the scene, I'm a tiny bit confused about what's going on here, specifically what the white stuff is. It just might be cream cheese, which hardly seems reasonable, but...we'll find out for sure when my field correpondent checks back in.

Ah, right, the recipe. I believe this is called "Layered Beef and Cheese Dip". Take the below items:

And melt/brown in the oven. Serve with Tostitos brand tortilla chips if I'm not mistaken.

OMG! My crown fell off just looking at this picture. LOL.

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expiration race.

My first question is, is there any way to make me stop posting? I think the problem is that I literally don't have anything else to do except wait for my passport. And obsess about things I might be forgetting. And about things in general.

But really: the apartment is ready for our houseguest. Our webstore is shut down. The fridges are cleanish. I'm packed for my flight. My tooth is stable (fingers crossed). Mentally, I left a couple of days ago. The only thing that is making me unclench are Cameo videos. And online Scrabble. This is no way to live.

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My second question is: when does sauerkraut really go bad? And what are the ramifications? Today I felt like chomping on something sort of healthy yet kind of manly, and as I was mentally searching the kitchen for Things That Needed Using, my mind lit upon an old bag of sauerkraut. Unfortunately, my mind didn't look at the expiration date before it and the rest of my body went to the store and bought some salmon to go along with the kraut. Not really a springtime dish, but...Things Needed Using.

I returned home with my fish. Looked at the kraut. It expired a month ago. Bah. I opened it, it stunk, as expected, but...that's what sauerkraut does, no? I rinsed it, no obvious out-of-place smells. I tasted it, tasted like sauerkraut, still firm, not, I don't know...gross and/or mushy? I don't know, what would the warning signs be? Etc etc etc. So I used it.

And! I'm pretty sure this was the best version of this I've ever put together, I was totally caught off-guard by its nonchalant delivery of complete satisfaction. And, know what else? I didn't use the Bayona recipe that started this whole thing.

I don't feel like writing a recipe right now though. So here are some hints to myself about what I did: of course always rinse your sauerkraut; slow cooking of onions and kraut; beer instead of wine; lots of black pepper, in fact, lots of caraway, thyme, and black pepper, and a little juniper; after onions and kraut done, saute salmon in not a little butter, salt, and black pepper; drizzle/smear two drops of high-quality liquid hickory smoke over each filet as a Bacon Emulator, place on top of kraut and onion mixture in the skillet, put in 200C oven for 10 minutes or however long is right. So much for not writing a recipe.

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off the rails.

Does anyone else worry about repeating post titles? I'm striving for a certain fauxbliqueness with mine that is basically drawn from maybe 400 or so little catchphrases that are bouncing off of each other in my increasingly empty head. We're bound to get some repeats soon if we haven't already.

Until that dark, dark day, I'm just going to keep posting until I can't take it anymore, which is probably right about now, but nonetheless I first wanted to share this all-too-rare example of The Onion being a little funny anymore: American Airlines Now Charging Fees to Non-Passengers. At least a few sentences' worth are funny...but did we need a page-long article (rhetorical)?

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I can't decide which band we should be for Halloween: Cameo or Earth, Wind, and Fire. The first 20 seconds of the Cameo video above for "Shake Your Pants" are, I think, indisputably delightful on many levels. I just had a little non-Halloween vision where we built an alarm clock in our (already quite crowded) "living room" that was essentially a life-sized replica of the first 20 seconds of this video. Maybe not the full drum kit, due to space limitations, but definitely the four main ass-wiggling guys. And that's how we'd wake up every morning. How could anyone be anything but terribly optimistic after that.

Something else to consider is that, according to Wikipedia, Cameo started out with 23 members. Could we find 23 people to dress up as Cameo in Amsterdam (I'm pretty sure the answer is yes)?

On the other hand, there are budget constraints. I think EWF might be cheaper prop-wise b/c the lead singers apparently don't need microphones (although there are other microphones on stage...weird). True, "Boogie Wonderland" is not a terribly exciting video, though The Emotions try valiantly to make it so, but there's something endearing about the general enthusiasm level, and you at least have to watch up until 1:56 for Philip Bailey's great diva face.

+++

The thing about being Cameo, though: my first real guitar teacher from early-1980's Atlanta is on the later-period Word Up! record (emphasis theirs). Kind of embarrassing what they did to him in the videos, though: imagine your average, I don't know...construction worker, plumber (sorry, Pat). Then pretend you're the makeup/hair person for this kind of flamboyant black funk band and you have to make this nondescript white dude look like he belongs in the videos. That's him on the freeze frame below. Actual guitar solo at 1:58.

+++

There's actually a pretty great interview with Guitar Teacher here. At least it's great for me because it's very much like being in his crappy apartment off of Highway 41 back in 1984, shootin' the shit and learning Allan Holdsworth solos. Good times. The interview does ramble a bit...I can't imagine you'd read the whole thing unless you were really interested in the life of a currently hot Nashville cat who's played with both Cyndi Lauper and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

wheel in the sky.

I was going to send this to Mara but then I thought heck, I'll share it with ALL OF YOU. Zora is in town and has taken some nice pictures of places I've been lately but have not myself taken pictures of.

+++

I've been informed that my passport is in fact here in Amsterdam and should be in my possession tomorrow or Thursday, and that means I am out of here on Thursday or Friday, thus ending my thoroughly useless and frustrating limbo (yay!) and restoring a little Moop back into my life (double yay!).

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I haven't talked about this much here because, yeah, it's kind of boring, and in general (insert 14-minute pause for self-reflection to see if this is really true, and the verdict is: not sure) I don't like to complain, but my RSI pain had not ever really gone away as expected, and in fact had gotten quite a bit worse. Which unfortunately made sense, since we continued to have gigs into March.

I mention it here because there's a lot of RSI info out there in Googleville, but not a ton for guitarists, and specifically not much at all for my situation (switching from being a life-long flatpicker to almost 100% fingerstyle over the course of a rather intense 3 months).

But lo: the constant pain and stiffness have diminished greatly over the past week, like amazingly, which is really, truly fantastic news because throughout March my sleep and thus general mood had been steadily worsening, plus I was supposed to be working out but I had zero strength or flexibility in my right arm (did I mention the constant pain?), etc etc etc.

Now the bad news: the solution seems to have been to basically stop playing guitar for three weeks. Not ideal. But, I'll take it for now.

+++

bringing it all home.

It's funny, some people would say, how things you read about in the news don't really seem 100% real until they enter your own life. And then once they've entered, they don't seem like the thing you were reading about in the news, they just seem like your life. Say, for example..."subprime mortgage crisis". Didn't really seem real until, well...it was.

What am I talking about, exactly. Well, you know how we don't like to talk too much about truly personal matters here at VDuck, but I thought maybe just this once it would be inspirational, or necessary, although also probably depressing, to document some of what is happening. I promise not to reveal too much, don't worry.

So...as soon as my new passport shows up, I'll see you in America. Any minute now.

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To lighten this post, I've included photos of Calico Squeezy Peep and the To3n Crier. Expect lots of animal photos over the next few weeks.

I also just noticed that in the picture of Calico Squeezy Peep you can see the grossness that is what's left of my right big toe after not breaking it with that hammer that one time. I mean, that's what it looks like now. Good thing I'm not a foot model.

spooky tooth.

It's been an exciting couple of days. I discovered a new way to break your tooth (tortilla chip splitting molar in two: fast, effective). To counteract this, I had another positive dental experience at TandartsJordaan (that makes about 14 of them in a row now).

SUDDEN UPDATE: If you know me, of course you know what had to happen like an hour after I typed that last sentence. My fucking temporary crown came off, nearly killing me in the process. And that's why we (everyone say it together now)...Never Underestimate The Great Magnet.

+++

Before nearly choking to death on my own newly-minted artificial tooth, I also spent some quality time with the Reklame bin at De Avondmarkt. For you non-locals, the Reklame bin is quite like the Clearance rack in concept, except that most of the things in the Reklame bin were never for sale at non-Reklame prices...they start out there. I don't know if that makes sense to you or not.

The Reklame bin is one of my favorite things about De Avondmarkt (a store about which I love many things), because you never know exactly what's going to be in there, and sometimes it's very interesting and/or good.

Also often German, for some reason. Pictured above is a small piece of, yes, horse sausage. Made from horses. In the Clearance bin. Below, duck liver mousse. Just a small piece. Good thing I had this around, I needed some soft food this morning.

green machine.

I made these pakoras a few weeks back and thought they were the shit. Until I made these pakoras tonight.

+++

guarajat-style cabbage pakoras.

1/2 cup grated coconut
1 cup chick-pea flour

1 cup hot water

2 cups firmly packed finely chopped or shredded green cabbage
1 cup sauteed onion, chopped

1 tsp fresh grated ginger
2 tbsp "tandoori spice" (I explain later, but this is primarily paprika, cumin, coriander and garam masala)

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp peanut oil
1 tsp sesame seeds

Sift your cup of besan into a bowl. Add coconut. Add the hot water in stages to the besan and coconut mixture, whisking after each addition to avoid lumps. Add cabbage, onion, ginger, and spices and stir to fully coat the vegetables with the batter. At this point the batter can be left along for a really long time. I think my last batch waited 3 days for me to cook it. Heat oil in a skillet and fry patties for 2-3 minutes per side, flattening them with a spatula (you need to make sure the besan is cooking). Serve with chutneys. Makes 8-10 pakoras.

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mint-cilantro chutney.

The proportions in this recipe really depend on the quality/taste of your fresh herbs. I find that using a little more cilantro than mint seems to work, but only if your cilantro tastes good (duh!). Also, I've had varying degrees of success with different yogurts, my favorite so far is Turkish or Greek. Lastly? This recipe tastes better 3 or 4 hours after you make it, but it will start to look kind of gross and crusty. Just clean off the sides of the container with a rubber spatula and give it a good stir.

250 gr yoghurt

1 cup fresh mint leaves (no stems)

1.5 cups fresh cilantro leaves (stems OK)

1/2 fresh green chile

a little salt

1/2 tsp sugar if needed

10-20 nigella seeds if you're feeling Indian (optional)

Blend. Adjust salt/sugar. Makes a little more than 1 cup.

+++

sunbugs.

Sun! Walking! Sitting! Drinking! Below is Cafe Bouwman, one of the few places on the Utrechtsestraat that gets nice sun in the afternoon. They also have a broodje halfom on the menu, but today we got post-beer haring and kibbeling from the fish stand across the street instead.

Above is the Herenstraat, the current state of which I'll explain imminently.

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debt.

A Lego man on a torta Pasqualina. Some as-yet-unnamed pasta shape (turns out it's calamarata, with tomatoes, basil, and butter, really good). Pata negra. We owe so many people dinners at the moment.

And we laughed so motherflippin' hard last night that I broke down in tears at least once and my stomach actually hurts today...when was the last time that happened? But then how often do we get to see Andy's rope-sliding face. Remind me to tell you the story sometime.

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precisely.

So, this whole TMOP/DGVP thing may not work out. Like almost every translation, some subtleties seem to be slipping through the cracks. I mean, I don’t expect every word to be perfect, and unless you’re William Weaver or Alfred Birnbaum, it’s unlikely that a masterful, enthralling tone will be consistently preserved throughout, but…well, here, look at this.

TMOP: “What do you think?” It was Arthur. Though his tone was light, he looked angry, or preoccupied, anyway.

“I think Riri’s father is a white slaver. Say, this is some party.” I tried to get that tone of slogan in my voice. Then I chanced a slight indiscretion. “Did you find ‘someone um’?”
He evaded the question, physically. He averted his eyes, and blushed, like a maiden, like Fanny Price in Mansfield Park.

DGVP: ‘En?’ Het was Arthur. Hij praatte op luchtige toon, maar wekte een boze, of op zijn minst gepreoccupeerde indruk.

‘Volgens mij handelt Riri’s vader in blanke slavingen. Hé, dit is me wel een feest!’ Ik probeerde net zo’n slagzintoontje in mijn stem te leggen. Toen waagde ik een lichte indiscretie. ‘Heb je “iemand ehm” gevonden?’
Hij ontweek de vraag, letterlijk. Hij wendde zijn blik af en bloosde, als en maagd, als Fanny Price in Mansfield Park.

+++

Two things that bug me here. The "Say, this is some party" line. Are you allowed to change punctuation from a period to an exclamation point in a translation? These two sentences mean two really different things to me, especially when we know the speaker is a bit of a smart-ass:

"Say, this is some party."

"Say, this is some party!"

The fact that, as a 21-year-old in the 1980s, you're even beginning a sentence with say, this means you're being sarcastic, because young people haven't spoken like that since the 1940s. The punctuation indicates exactly how sarcastic you're being. A period is subtle and dry, more like a wisecrack. An exclamation point is mocking and asshole-ish.

And "He evaded the question, physically". The Dutch is interesting because it switches out physically for literally, which is a crafty distortion of the English. Correct me if I'm wrong here: ontwijk apparently has a couple of meanings, the relevant one is "to change direction in order not to collide against something." Meaning that, yes, Arthur is literally changing the direction of his face in order to avoid Art's question, but it seems like the translation is being a bit too clever for its own good.

Since we’re here anyway, we might as well look at some vocab:

ontwijken: avoid, evade

+++

easter grub.

This morning's coffee/bed/Scrabble session generated a creature called the Easter Grub, who doesn't bring children any candy or eggs (due to lack of limbs, hands, etc.), and just kind of oozes around instead of merrily hopping.

+++

Yesterday I had a tasty little meal over at Mega5ubtle, Inc (a slightly improbable soup of shiitake, chickpeas, and spinach in a mushroom broth, but it's totally good), and today our lovely neighbors Andy + Vale (who brought us the fresh Italian bay leaves pictured above) have invited us down the hall for some kind of meal. Nice! We're experimenting with some kind of Northern Italian stuffed cabbage thing.

+++

Here's DWOD #2. Of course, if you are a native speaker and you see something egregiously wrong with this translation, you'll let me know, won't you?

daverende: thumping, concussive, thunderous

TMOP: “You are now glad that you came,” Mohammed said to me, rather irrelevantly shaking my hand. Then he barged into the pounding foyer.

DGVP: ‘Je bent blij dat je gekomen bent,’ zei Abdullah tegen mij, terwijl hij nogal nodeloos mijn hand schudde. Daarna stormde hij de daverende hal in.

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bad immigrant - port of call: amsterdam.

My Dutch sucks, badly. In the interest of improving it in a way that doesn't feel like "work", I'm going to once again try and read a Dutch translation of an English book that I'm very very familiar with, and this time try to 1) finish the book, and 2) learn something from the experience. Oh, and 3) document some of it here.

The book I'm starting with is Michael Chabon's The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh (TMOP from here on out), which, of the books for which I have a Dutch version and an English version, offers the most interesting dialogue and creative turns of phrase (in English). The Dutch version is called De Geheimen van Pittsburgh, and will be referred to as DGVP from this point forward.

I don't know what I'm looking for here, or if this is an even remotely good idea. But hopefully it will initiate something larger on my part (I'm just going to leave that there). I think I'll start with a Dutch Word Of the Day (DWOD) kind of thing b/c it's low-impact and something I might realistically do every day. So here's DWOD #1:

bekoorlijkheid: charm

TMOP: There was, however, a last paper on Freud’s letters to Wilhelm Fliess, for which I realized I would have to make one exasperating last visit to the library, the dead core of my education, the white, silent kernel of every empty Sunday I had spent trying to ravish the faint charms of the study of economics, my sad and cynical major.

DGVP: Alleen had ik nog een laatste werkstuk te doen over de brieven van Freud aan Wilhelm Fliess, en ik realiseerde me dat ik daar nog een laatste ergerlijk bezoekje voor aan de bibliotheek zou moeten brengen, het dode klokhuis van mijn opleiding, de witte, stille pit van iedere lege zondag die ik had doorgebracht met proberen de schrale bekoorlijkheden van de studie economie, mijn droef and cynisch hoofdvak, te genieten.

+++

pão de queijo.

Mara had these last week at Casa Brazuca and loved them. Crafty weasel that she is, she made them for breakfast today and I loved them. A bit too much. Warm, cheesy, chewy, kind of gelatinous weird goodness, they were great for breakfast but I can see how they'd be really amazing with a savory bean dish like feijoada or chili.

It's interesting how different they are right out of the oven. I thought for sure that would be our favorite way to eat them, but hours later they're equally good at room temperature...just very different. Kind of like Krispy Kreme donuts in their hot/cold transformation.

+++

pão de queijo.

1 cup milk
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup peanut or corn oil
2 cups tapioca flour
2 eggs
1 cup cheese, grated (we used a mix of 75% pecorino and 25% Gouda...the important thing is that it should be mostly hard dry cheese)
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

Preheat oven to 175C. In a sauce pan, combine milk, salt, oil, and butter and bring to the boil. Remove from heat, stir in tapioca flour, then stir in eggs and cheese. Let cool for 15 minutes or until handleable. With floured hands, shape dough into golfball-sized spheres and bake for 20-25 minutes until puffed up and golden. Serve warm, and I dare you to not eat them all. Makes 9 or 10. Maybe 12.

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de geheimen van kam yin.

I haven't done this in a while, but I just did: look at a menu and order what you're hungry for, even if it flies in the face of what you think a restaurant might be good at.

After an afternoon of "brainstorming" near the Zeedijk (pictured above) with some (well, go ahead) "colleagues", I ended up at Kam Yin on the Warmoestraat.

I know it's not supposed to be awesome or anything, but listen: there had been some beers involved in the brainstorming; I was hungry; I didn't have much money; and Kam Yin was packed with clientele that looked 100% Chinese and/or Surinamese.

Actually, backtrack: the real problem was, I had very much wanted to go to Nam Kee for their dry Sichuan chicken thingie that I'd had a couple of years ago. I'd been thinking about it on my way over to the Zeedijk, and by the time our meeting was over I was pretty sure I could almost taste it.

Trouble, continued: Nam Kee was closed for renovations. Yes, I'm sure I could've gone next door to New King and probably gotten the same or better, but there was a long line snaking out their door onto the garbage-strewn sidewalk (apparently/hopefully it was garbage night on the Zeedijk).

So, I gave up and headed home. And then I walked past Kam Yin. Which was packed, but there was no line. And then, faced with the choice of a 20-minute walk home without Chinese food or a 20-minute walk home with a head reeling from some numbingly spicy-ass Sichuan peppercorns, I went inside.

+++

Once seated, out of a menu of 814 items, I ordered one of 5 Sichuan dishes, the Sichuan chicken (8 euro). I'm sure you know where this is going.

Rather than say anything bad about Kam Yin, I'll blame myself for this one. It was edible, sure, but what was on my plate had nothing to do with Sichuan food. It was 100% pre-made goopy Chinese food that can only be satisfying after several beers and the application of various chili sauces.

And this is my fault, for sure. The best smells coming out of the kitchen were 100% Suriname food. The sign outside says "Surinamese/Chinese food". What I did was the equivalent of ordering a roti at Nam Kee, and why would I do that? I wouldn't.

At Kam Yin, the service was lightning-fast and friendly. The prices were right. Lots of people seemed to be enjoying their Surinamese food. If there's a next time, I ignore the stomach, respect the head, do what makes sense, etc etc etc.

+++

bailed out.

Let's take a large pause to appreciate the unlikely continuing awesomeness of Disk Union for once again allowing us to figuratively bring home the bacon.

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The hive is humming with activity this morning, the soundtrack to which is Earth, Wind, and Fire's Greatest Hits, which takes me back to 1978 and The Best of Earth, Wind, and Fire, Vol. 1 (not the same disc at all).

In 1978, I was 9 years old, and though I'd been dipping my toe into my parents' record collection for a few years, this was one of the first records to unlock my penchant for obsessing over a piece of music. I know all the lyrics and every hilarious Philip Bailey melisma (a word my spell-checker doesn't know), etc.

Mara is right there with me on most of it, so if you pass by our street some time this morning, you may well hear two dueling Philip Baileys crowing their hearts out over top of the hammering, drilling, sawing, etc.

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smoked out.

Mara went to Frank's Smoke House this week and at some point retasted his lightly smoked salmon cakes with mango chutney and found them to still be delicious. Since this is a household that really likes fish cakes, we decided to see if we could recreate these even without owning our own smokehouse.

Two minor points of interest: we used Liquid Smoke for the smokey component here, but I'd also like to try smoked salmon (maybe two tablespoons minced is where I would start?), or bacon would probably also be not terrible.

And, you may notice that there's no egg in these cakes. Didn't need it.

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frank's salmon cakes with mango chutney.

500gr salmon filet, chopped roughly into 1 cm pieces
1/2 cup scallions, chopped
1/3 to 1/2 cup bread/cracker crumbs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp Surinamese masala (we use Chan's) or your favorite "curry powder"
2 tsp liquid smoke (or 1-2 tbsp smoked salmon, minced)

1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp lime zest
salt and pepper to taste

mango chutney

PFGO.

I've been making omelettes for Moop the last couple of days, today's was really Repeatable: good-yet-cheap tuna (packed in oil, from the Maroc), pointy red Turkish peppers, red onion, Manchego, and black pepper. Standard disclaimer: if all you've ever had is crappy water-packed supermarket tuna, this is going to sound nasty. Get yourself some good tuna.

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tortilla de atún y pimiento.

Saute 1/2 red onion and 1/2 pointy red or green pepper til soft. Drain 1 can of good oil-packed tuna, flake into skillet, stir briefly to combine with onions and peppers. Sprinkle 3 tbsp Manchego over top, heat through (5 minutes or so). Remove tuna filling from skillet and set aside. Add 3 beaten eggs to skillet, wait 1 minute until bottom is set, and return tuna filling to skillet in Omelet Formation. Sprinkle again with a little Manchego and several healthy grates of black pepper. Do not salt without tasting first, this will probably be salty enough. Continue as you normally would. Serves 2.

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basher.

Hmm. What sort of foodstuff would have necessitated the use of this hammer and chisel to render it useful?

I'll give you a hint:

This is the delicious and purportedly extremely healthful substance that comes out of the victim after you drill holes through its eyes (and no it's not Ash or Bishop).

That drill bit might sound harsh, but the next step is to throw a towel over its eyeless head and bash it with a hammer a few times until said head cracks open. I wish you could have seen Mara's face while she was doing the bashing. SO HAPPY!!!

Unfortunately, the next step is way, way, way less fun. With a sharp knife, or, if you've recently cut yourself quite badly and are having self-trust issues, a vegetable peeler, separate all of the white coconut meat from the brown skin. More on this in a bit.

alligator point, 1990.

The person on the right in this photo just sent me this. Yes, Alligator Point is really what this beach was called 20 years ago (we were in Florida).

And that really is me on the left, somehow. Obviously this was before I knew how to cook. And yet I seem to already have known that having pockets full of beer was Good Planning.

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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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bloodhounding.

I'm sure there's a more descriptive name for what I am than "obsessive", maybe someone can help remind/enlighten me as to what it is so that I don't spend another hour of my life stuck in a marginally-useful Googhole.

The symptoms: when "interested" in a subject, I tend to crave detail, beginning with the basics and quickly working towards the "most interesting" nooks and crannies I can sniff out. If the subject's entire realm of knowable detail is a tree, metaphorically speaking, then you will most definitely find me out on the tiniest dead-end branches, squinting metaphorically off into the distance in search of other branches to which I might metaphorically leap (someone witty should say something hilarious here about a brother's metaphorical weight and the likelihood of any metaphorical branch supporting his metaphorical leaping without his ending up in a tangle of detail-obsessed limbs on the floor of his Imaginary Knowledge Jungle, but...).

Which brings me to my current "interest" in the cooking of Sri Lanka. I'm not proud of it, it's just the way my mind works.

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(insert perfunctory and poorly-researched three-sentence history of Sri Lanka here)

I can see how it happened. Unbeknownst to y'all, I've been playing around with Indian food lately, a cuisine that I was once quite madly in love with but had to abandon in the interest of possible good health, or at least something we'll call "less bad health".

As a result of this previous "interest", there aren't too many regional styles of cooking over there with which I'm completely unfamiliar, but Sri Lankan is (was) one of them. And as you can imagine, I have a real problem leaving these last stones unturned.

And thus, we turn them. Tonight I'm making a Sri Lankan curry. Elements of distinction? Coconut, cinnamon, cardamom. Toasted, to boot.

Until then, here's this:

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got a brain, got a brain, like a peanut on a plate.

OK, the secret is out: I'm a bit hungover today after yesterday's afternoon show at the BIMHuis stretched into a bit of a pub crawl.

Luckily my helper picked up a roti from Toko Hangalampoe. It's not the most photogenic thing around: that's potatoes, long beans, an egg, and three pieces of chicken in a curry broth with hot Madame Jeanette sambal and flaky roti bread (for me, the highlight) to wrap everything in.

i can explain.

Serious diet begins tomorrow. Today...I had to say some goodbyes. Pork belly and hoisin? It was great to see you both this morning, thanks for stopping by. Catch you later, guys.
















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trouble.

De Avondmarkt now suddenly sells every imaginable variety of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I like imagining that it's their carefully-considered response to Dirk and AH both suddenly being open on Sunday now. Take that, you corporate bastards!!!

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I made this tempeh again, marinating it last night and cooking it up for breakfast. I can't tell if it's actually really good or if I've just gotten really attached to the taste of tempeh. Because of the marinade, you can't really cook it to proper Tempeh Brownness (and thus proper Tempeh Crispness neither); in fact, this time I even left the maple syrup out of the marinade (intending to glaze with it at the end) and the soy sauce still burned a little.

But...I could still see eating this quite often. Mara hates the un-crisp texture, so I'm guessing this is not an appropriate recipe for the as-yet-unconverted.

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the holy trinity + 1.

In our little red well-intentioned but ultimately unfinishable homemade cookbook, there's a page titled THE HOLY TRINITY. This refers to three courses that, if served in succession, will almost definitely make you feel better about everything except your diet and your breath.

They are: caesar salad, tortellini alfredo, and shrimp dijon. Three classic examples of Ohio River mining country Italian-American home cooking that my spellchecker wants me to capitalize in order to make them sound fancy (Caesar, Alfredo, Dijon).

But capitalization would make it seem like they're supposed to be an implementation of some "authentic" dish, while in reality these are very much their own pretty classic Americanized things that just happen to be saddled with some Europeanized monikers.

Here's also where we'll put the TNC recipe, though it's not officially part of the trinity. As I pointed out earlier, of course you could sex this up with fancy cheese and other modifications, but the one below is the version that provides the expected and necessary comfort.

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LENGTHY ASIDE

THE HOLY TRINITY recipes are all from the Mara side of the family, which is why I mention the Ohio River Valley, but to be honest I haven't yet tried to track down the exact provenance of these versions. I don't mean provenance like the legend of Caesar salad or fettuccine Alfredo: I mean, more like when did people start making this specific version and exactly where does it still get made like this. 

I'm curious b/c I suspect that there are some things about these recipes that are specific to Italian immigrant cooking in mining country (specifically in our cases Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania). And I suspect this simply because so many of Mara's family recipes have turned out to be highly geographically specific, such as pepperoni buns (this whole NYT article has lots of good Italian miner background) and fiadone.

Fiadone are especially interesting in this regard because, the last time I looked, I could find almost nothing about them online. Of course, I was spelling them "fiadune" because that's the spelling I somehow came up with from Alverta's recipe card, and it was highly probable that my spelling was incorrect.

Oh, right: what are they....as I know them, made by Alverta, they are little ricotta-filled baked raviolis. Not very sweet, not very savory, just niiice. Googling around here in 2010, my first hit is Clotilde describing fiadone as a Corsican cheesecake, sounds like a promising avenue, especially if you consider that up in northern Ohio there used to be a town called Corsica. And that the food of the "real" Corsica is pretty Italian-influenced. 

But all of this turned out to be a Googhole smokescreen or cheesescreen or some kind of screen. Some further careful Googling reveals that fiadone con ricotta are a well-known specialty of Molise, which is next to Abruzzo, which is where Mara's family is from, so yes. They brought them with them. So did other Abruzzini, it looks like.

And I just wasted about an hour learning all kinds of things about Corsica.

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the caesar salad.

1/4 cup good olive oil

1/8 cup good red wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2 cloves garlic, pressed

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp anchovy paste, or 2 mashed anchovies

1 tsp lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

1 head romaine lettuce

1 cup (just to be safe) pecorino or parmesan cheese, grated coarsely

Combine first 8 ingredients, dress lettuce leaves, top with cheese and possibly more black pepper. Serves 4.

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the tortellini alfredo.

1 cup crème fraîche

1 cup pecorino, grated fine

2 tbsp butter, softened

2-3 cloves good fresh garlic, pressed

salt and pepper to taste

enough tortellini for 2 people

Put pasta in salted boiling water, combine sauce ingredients in a bowl. When pasta is done, drain, and put back in saucepan, add sauce, serve. Serves 2.

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the shrimp d'jo3n.

24 shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/4 cup clarified butter

4 cloves garlic, pressed

1/4 cup bread crumbs or crushed toasted almonds

1/4 cup pecorino or other hard cheese, grated

paprika for dustimg

Melt butter in saucepan and divide between two round shallow baking vessels. Add 2 cloves of garlic to each vessel, let's say it's a ramekin because vessel sounds weird. Divide shrimp among ramekins, turning once to coat with butter/garlic. Top with bread crumbs and pecorino, and a sprinkle of paprika. Place under broiler until attractively browned. Commence to placing of teeth upon said shrimpuses. Serves 2.

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the tuna noodle casserole.

1 can tuna packed in water, drained (if packed in decent oil, reserve)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 cup celery, chopped

1 cup red onion, chopped

1 tbsp olive oil (if tuna didn't come packed in oil)

1 cup pecorino, grated fine

3 cups noodles, cooked

Saute celery and onion in olive oil, or 1 tbsp oil from the tuna can. Combine celery and onion with rest of ingredients in a baking pan, maybe sprinkle some more cheese on top. Bake at 170C for 30 minutes. Serves 2 or 3.

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snowballs or thumbprints.

Hey guys. Did you know that this post is my 801st on this blog? Far out.

People actually used to say that, "Far out".

I keep forgetting to read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. A while back I had decided I probably couldn't handle it, but then I just read an Elisabeth Kübler-Ross book for this new project we're working on, and I survived that, ha, "survived", and so, I figure I'll probably be OK with Joan. So I got to get a copy, yo.

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In other news, we are entering a period of healthfulness after several months of gradually doing everything wrong again. Wish us/me luck.

Tonight, we will be working on some last comfort-y moments. I'm thinking I'll try this again, and Mara is working on some kind of egg roll.

More later.

sauceboy.

In recovery from several days of heavy socializing and a successful gig. At the moment all we want is comfort food. For lunch today that meant: pasta with tuna, celery, onions, mayo, and Parmesan...the quick and European tuna noodle casserole (TNC). Why is this abomination so darn satisfying? Recipe to come, but til then you can marvel at someone else's recipe here. And here. And...here.

Below, a related recipe. Related, in that it comes right before tuna noodle casserole in our homemade cookbook under the heading I NEED COMFORT FOOD.

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the PMS sandwich.

1 good onion, sliced
1/2 lemon
1 tbsp butter
1 good poppyseed kaiser roll
1-2 slices Emmenthaler, Gruyere, or Gouda
2 tbsp mayonnaise
freshly ground pepper

Melt butter, saute onion briefly, squeeze the half lemon into the pan, arrange onions into something that might fit on the bottom half of a Kaiser roll, place the cheese on top of that pile until it really melts. Put the mayo on the top half of the roll, put the onion-cheese pile on the bottom half, grind pepper, close, eat, feel better for awhile.

behind the wall of cheese.

A food shop in Liguria. Photo by Andy.

piroshky piroshky.

If you go to 5:15 in this video, you'll see a visit to Piroshky Piroshky, the smell of which is one of my most indelible food memories ever. When in Seattle for weeks at a time, I used to try to do exactly what Bourdain says he would do: eat at Piroshky Piroshky every day until I just couldn't stand it anymore. Except I could never not stand it anymore.

And this, well...two completely unrelated but totally trustworthy sources posted it yesterday so I had to check it out, and, yes, it's worth a couple seconds of your time:

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