Sour cherry season is short, but sweet… or sour… or whatever. So much to do with these little morsels of yumminess in so little time. Canning sour cherry compote to serve as a base for sauces to be lovingly spooned over duck and pork throughout the remainder of the year is one priority. Another is to slurp as much meggyleves — the borscht-like Hungarian chilled sour cherry soup — as humanly possible.
So, I met this girl… on the internet.
No, that doesn’t really capture it. To begin with, she’s a woman, not a girl. A really, really smart one.
More to the point, we met quite by accident, not on JDate or ashleymadison.com. It seems we both live in, and blog about Pondicherry. And we are both a little food-obsessed. So we started corresponding about these things.
Deepa Reddy is a cultural anthropologist by profession, an artist by natural talent and temperament, and a cook by passion. Her blog, Pâticheri, is a thing of beauty, thoughtfulness, and deliciousness. During one of our exchanges — about the semiotics of baking or some such thing — she suggested that it might be fun to take our “ethnographic free-play” public, to post our back-and-forth on our blogs in real-time. With you, Dear Reader, adding your own “deep play” (I promise, that will be my one-and-only cultural anthropology joke) in the comments, this might just be an interesting experiment.
After loosely settling on a topic — national identity and all-things-food — we have decided to let it rip. Let the wild rumpus begin!
MBJ
The Conversation Thread
1. So American! (Deepa) 15 July 2012
2. You Are Having One American Nature Only, I Am Telling (MBJ) 16 July 2012
3. Cosmopolitan Comforts (Deepa) 20 July 2012
4. No Accounting for Taste (MBJ) 24 July 2012
5. What a Mess! (Deepa) 10 August 2012
6. Tell Me What You Eat and I Will Tell You Who You Are (MBJ) 21 August 2012
Reader Comments…
When our friend, the lovely and talented Andrea Frustaci, triumphed last week in the Burnaby Open Tennis Tournament, we had to have a celebratory dinner. The centerpiece of the menu was moules marinières with a nice crusty sourdough bread. (Dessert, incidentally, utilized the recently-made rose petal jam as a topping for vanilla ice cream, accompanied by lavender shortbread.)
But there were way more mussels than we could eat, and a goodly bit of the rich, creamy broth. So, with the leftovers, a handfull-or-two of bay shrimp, a few yukon gold potatoes, an ear of corn, and supplimental splashes of white wine and cream, I prepared the fantabulous one-pot meal pictured above. Is it a stew? A chowder? A “panroast” a la The Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station? Who could say? Our mouths were full.
“Do you want roses for jam? My mother’s roses are blooming like crazy and she’s already picked what she will use for the season.” Thus read the text message from our friend Ozlem Sensoy and, within a few days, we were raiding Mrs. Sensoy’s intensely fragrant garden. That evening, we set to making jam.
I loathe Christmas. But just as every cloud has a silver lining, there is one truly excellent thing about Christmas: eggnog.
In fairness, eggnog is not exclusively within the Christmas domain. But let’s throw a crappy holiday a bone of redemption. And, anyway, this is really not about Christmas; it’s about eggnog.
This morning, before I was even fully conscious, I had a flash of inspiration: caramel eggnog. In other words, caramelize the sugar (in a syrup) instead of incorporating it raw. The result, pictured above, is superb.
Really, you need a recipe? Damn this season of giving!
Jane Roskams, UBC neuroscientist and fellow Point Grey denizen, has a mighty apple tree in her backyard. Each year, it provides an abundant harvest — or rather, an over-abundant harvest. To mitigate the apple onslaught, to broaden the wealth, and to share the fun, Jane holds an annual Apple Pie Party. The 2011 event took place last night, and we were fortunate enough to wrangle an invitation.
The concept of the party is simple: help Jane use the damn apples. And one more thing: be prepared to be judged on your effort.
Better Thanksgiving turkey in half the time — by braising.
It’s time for traditionalists to face facts: turkey is a pretty lousy item of poultry. That it became the standard for the Thanksgiving celebration is, of course, a function of the mythologized first date of “pilgrims” and “Indians” in 1621, Plymouth Colony. (Somehow, a carefree night of dinner and dancing led to a violent, abusive long-term relationship, to the everlasting regret of the indigenous peoples of North America and the well-repressed shame of generations of settler colonizers.) Turkeys were one of the principal comestibles mentioned in the account of Plymouth Governor, William Bradford. But he also listed waterfowl, venison, fish, lobster, and clams on that first menu – all of which are way tastier than turkey.
Celebrating the tail-end of B.C’s amazing strawberry crop — and spreading the enjoyment throughout the year.
What do you do when you return home from a week away to find your chives in full bloom? This.
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