Posts Tagged ‘Food’
Take the greens by the stalk
We have consumed more greens in last two years than we ate the entire last two decades. I have our CSA (Live Earth Farm) to thank for that. Red beets come with lively green tops. Baby carrots come with leggy green tops. The turnips come with eager green leaves. The fennels come with delicate frond wings. Then there are just the greens on stalks – the rainbow chard and the spinach and the collard greens and the lacinato kale and the russian red kale and the winterbor kale. And of course there are herbs – the cilantro, the parsley, the rosemary, the scallions and the basil. These are not your anemic slim bunches that you get at the grocery store. The leeks come whole i.e. twice the greens of your grocery store bought ones. And finally, the heads, the salads, the radicchio etc.
There is no way you can waste them. These are no faceless farmers from another continent. They are located in Freedom, just a hop, skip and jump away. The food is grown on a land that I call home and I am convinced that small scale organic farming is backbreaking labor of love.
So, I have been cooking these greens in all possible ways. The unexpected greens from the carrots, turnips, fennel and beets, the stalky greens, the heads of greens, the herbs. And the greens don’t just stop with CSA – the real backyard giveth onion weeds, the oregano buds, the mint, the sorrels, the lemongrass, the makrut lime leaves, the fig leaves, and the bay leaves. Sometimes there are microgreens in a box by the window.
… and it has been exhausting. Like I have been running a marathon. All the cleaning, chopping, drying, freezing, pureeing, powdering, …
Read the rest of this entry »I too like to take the scenic route when I cook!
When I took a whiff of Matsutake mushrooms at Signona’s, I knew that I would have to make Matsutake Gohan. My version has Minnesota Lake wild rice, the ghost varietal, matsutake mushrooms, pearl couscous, pine nuts, dried tomatoes, salt fermented plums, green Szechuan peppercorn, black cardamom, bay leaf, cinnamon leaf and leeks. This meal was in honor of the Day of the Dead, a tradition I have adopted to honor those who are are no longer with me today. The first to pass away was my grandad, in fact, it was many decades ago this day. I was still a child then. He used to write long letters to me and might have played a strong hand in nurturing my contemplative nature.
The phrase “I Like to Take the Scenic Route When I Cook” is the title of a November 2025 newsletter from Yotam Ottolenghi. My cooking style has been described as my love language. I don’t see it that way but I didn’t have words to describe it until I came across Ottolenghi’s Nov newsletter. And then it clicked. I too prefer the scenic route when I cook. In any month, there is at least one day when I would just like to open a can of sardines and a bottle of wine for dinner. But most times, food is a journey, sometimes an hour, sometimes a day or three, and sometimes, a few seasons.
Here are some of the journeys I undertook with this dish.
Read the rest of this entry »The tug of duduk
I have loved the haunting sound of duduk for over a decade now. And it all started with a simple sleep app that played music in a loop. Along with other pleasing natural sounds, it also had duduk music. First the word got my attention. When you say the word out, it sounds like the vocalization of your heartbeat. There was no coming back once I heard the music, it is visceral and soulful and it lingers. I wonder if we really understand why music has the potential of transcending distances – the distance of time, space and culture. Perhaps it is because wind carries the music and wind connects all of us on this planet.
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Locomotoring 