pet peeves about indian cooking

.finely chopping garlic

.finely chopping tomatoes

.finely chopping onion

.seasoning with mustard-the tadka or thaalichi that ruins your stove top every single time.

.roasting and then grinding masala

.the odor, oh the odor (notice how I carefully avoid qualifying the odor)

.the hours it takes to get the grease off the pans

Come to think of it, this list isn't really unique to Indian cooking. One has to chop vegetables for pasta too you know. Except maybe the seasoning with the mustards.
To make that easier, you can now buy these little pans that come attached with gauzy lids that allow the splattering but only within the confines of the pan. Got to get me one of these soon.

Potato Leek Soup

State Farmer's Market, Forest Park GA

Been in GA for a while now, but visited the farmer's market in Forest Park for the first time this weekend. Quite the cultural experience! Very reminiscent of the "sandais" or சந்தை back home. Not a lot people there, despite it being a Saturday morning. Probably because the market caters more to wholesalers than retailers. There was however a section devoted to local Georgian produce and prices were on average cheaper than at the supermarkets.

There were several Mexican stores dotted through out the market. Mexican stores selling genuine "Hecho en Mexico" merchandise, including food products, beverages, kitchenware and misc. tchotchke. That was surreal...walking into a store in GA, and not being able to communicate with the store keeper except through frantic hand waving and brow raising!

Although we were advised to haggle with the mostly Mexican store/stall keepers, we just couldn't muster up the chutzpah-this was South after all....people greet you from 2 miles away.

Well worth a visit...I would even chalk it down as a cultural tour stop.

Main(e)ly food

Spent a week in the northeast-Maine, Acadia, Boston and NJ.
Great outdoors, wonderful food!

Review: Eating India

Just started reading Chitrita Banerji's Eating India. She travels to Calcutta, Goa, Karnataka and a few other places to sample local cuisine. Love the little snippets about the origins of certain ingredients (e.g. paneer). Cringed a tad though when she equated the Indian South with the American South for its unique historical and cultural underpinnings. So here's the deal-am south Indian and us south Indians, while grudgingly acknowledging the northerners' sense of sophistication, take great pride in our intellect, intelligence and general all-round smarts. Now, one can't say the same of the American south, atleast the popular (mis)-conceptions of it that is. Americans in general consider, American southerners, well, slow.

Does she mean to imply that she/other north Indians consider us darker skinned brethren , well, slow?

Also a tad intrigued by her choice of southern cuisine. I understand she possibly couldn't sample all regional cuisine (although, I would ask, why not?), but under constraints, I would have chosen either Keralite or Tamil Nadu cuisine. I would argue that Kannad cuisine is very similar to Tamil cuisine, and also that the latter is more expansive than the former.

Heck what do I know. I'm just a south indian.


Here's some trivia that I found interesting:

1. Chillies were introduced by the Portuguese. Now though, there is such a variety of chillies grown in India that only Mexico rivals India in its varieties of chillies. Incidentally, the Indian state of Assam produces the hottest chilly known to mankind-the bhut jolokia.

2. Jilebi, that yummy gujarati breakfast/dessert has its origins in the Arabia zalabiya.

3. Paneer, its origins in the Farsi Peynir. It was introduced to the Indians by the mughals.