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I finally decided to try it

I’ve been here long enough that the hostas are proliferating — I’ve known for a while that they’re edible, and that people like the early shoots for a sort of leek-like flavor, but I never quite felt like I had enough hostas that I was willing to sacrifice some shoots.

But I finally decided to try it — easy to do, just made up an omelette with what I had in the fridge. I’d say the sautéed hosta shoots have a very light flavor — slightly vegetal, edging towards bitterness, but at this stage, not as bitter as, say, arugula. They’ll get more bitter as they get older, if you like that flavor.

I’m not sure I’d go out of my way for them, but on the other hand, an easy way to add some early spring greens to my diet, and basically free at this point. I’m sure they’re good for me!

I glanced at this as a jumping off point, if you want a recipe to work from: https://www.motherearthliving.com/…/edible-hosta-tart…/

If you like frying things, tempura hostas shoots seem to be quite popular. I don’t fry very often, so don’t know that I’m going to try that anytime soon. If you do, report back!

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A recipe I developed for Feast: Green Mango Curry

I don’t remember Amma making green mango curry when I was growing up — this is a recipe I developed for Feast, and supposedly was served at King Kasyapa’s court in 5th century Sri Lanka. I make it pretty often now, when I’m making a party’s worth of rice and curries — the fruitiness of the mango is a great element to contrast with the other typical dishes.

Recipe: https://serendibkitchen.com/…/green-mango-curry…/

 

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This is how I remember her best

I ended up cooking a lot last Friday — invited my local aunts over to my dad’s house, along with his good friends Kanagaratnam Jegathesan and Kanthimatthi Jegathesan. I’m not really sure why I spent the whole day obsessively cooking — it was an impulse, to invite people over at all.

I suppose it’s just that we were in CT for a week to do college tour and spend time with my dad, and given the timing (we were leaving Saturday morning), I knew it wasn’t so likely that Kavi would see her other relatives unless we made an extra effort, so having people over seemed like the thing to do.

The aunties brought curries (crab and fish) and short eats (ribbon sandwiches and stuffed shrimp and mutton rolls), and both my dad and Jega Uncle ordered vatallappam, so it was a proper feast — way too much food, honestly, but that’s okay, we packed up the leftovers and sent them home with people, as we do. Hopefully nobody had to cook all weekend.

(Marina Aunty brought two large trays of short eats for me to bring back to Chicago, per usual — she is amazing, and her stuffed shrimp, mutton rolls, and milk toffee are perfect.)

It was great spending time with relatives and friends, but sad too. Cooking in Amma’s kitchen, hosting people the way she did so often, when it’s been two years since she’s been able to host people there. Kavi and I went to see her in the memory care unit on Thursday, and as expected, she didn’t recognize us. This is how I remember her best, I suppose — cooking her food.

These shrimp toasts are her recipe — Priya helped me prep and assemble them, but I should’ve made them spicier, and a little tangier, and we think they needed a little more mustard on the toasts. Guess I need more practice.

Lovely to see you, Jega Uncle and Kanthi Aunty! Glad you could join us. Wish Amma could’ve been with us too.

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From the Skinny Taste air fryer cookbook

Made this tonight, from the Skinny Taste air fryer cookbook, because Kev got us an air fryer a while back and I figured I should learn how to use it. This was good, but dang, white people food makes a lot of mess to cook. So many dishes! And then you need utensils to eat it too…

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Sri Lankan dinner for twelve

I might’ve done a lot of cooking today. Sri Lankan dinner for twelve. Other people helped shop and chop and did all the dishes while I was cooking, and all the cleanup afterwards. It was actually a lot of fun — it’s been a while since I had time to cook like this. I love composing a complex meal, and even dealing with restricted ingredients can add a fun challenge.

AND I finished a story draft today. Today gets an A+ on the personal front.

Menu:
• cheese and chutney (from a jar) and crackers
• mango-passionfruit mimosas
• red samba milk rice
• basmati rice
• seared ahi tuna, seasoned with a marinade of green chili, onion, and pink Hawaiian sea salt (this was an experiment, turned out well)
• local beef (from a family farm) curry
• tempered red lentils (one guest liked it so much, she took a photo of the recipe in my cookbook)
• egg curry
• eggplant and date curry (no tamarind easily found nearby, but dates worked well in a complementary sort of way)
• papaya and pineapple curry (v. popular)
• kale salad
• cucumber salad
• yogurt (okay, I didn’t cook this, but it was on the table, so)
• vanilla ice cream and store-bought cookies — in theory, I was going to make fruit salad, but ran out of energy, alas. But the papaya-pineapple curry was actually really good / interesting on the ice cream!

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Sardines on toast

Couple hours layover, going to try to get through a little bit of photo posting.

A few days ago, tried sardines on toast with some Sri Lankan spreads — the eggplant pickle was a little too sweet, I think — a touch of it would’ve been nice, but not on its own. The seeni sambol (spicy-sweet caramelized onions) worked better, but I have to admit, I like mine better than this one that comes ready-made in a jar. On the other hand, for a 3-minute breakfast (just long enough to toast the bread), the jar is awfully convenient…