with Mary Anne Mohanraj
Packing up treat boxes today, though there are a few more things I’d like to make — tamarind, fig & chocolate scones for the medium and large boxes, I think, assuming they come out well. Fingers crossed. Kevin is kindly cutting in the butter for me, which is the tedious part of making scones. 
Everyone needs a sous chef!
Hey, local friends — would anyone like this Easter-themed mold? I used it this week for making some chocolates for the treat boxes I’m shipping out tomorrow, but it’s not quite my aesthetic, and I’d be pleased to pass it on to a happy home. I used it for making chocolates (ruby chocolate with cranberry and pineapple, brushed with a bit of pink and silver glitter), but I think it could be used for candies, gummies, ice, and even soaps as well.
Packed up the small sweets for this weekend’s flash sale treat boxes (going out Monday). We have, this time around: dark chocolate with pink peppercorn, dragonfruit nebulae, dragonfruit marshmallow, chili chocolate, and salted blueberry. 
I was clearing out my phone photos, and realized that I never posted these photos, which I’d hoped to use to advertise upcoming book launch events at these Bay Area stores, sigh. That was such a nice day, walking around with Jed and having lunch and talking to bookstore people. (And later Alex in Sausalito…)
All three of these stores were enthusiastic about the possibility of carrying Feast and maybe doing an event with me. They may well have ordered copies in anticipation of that, so if you’re in the Bay Area and interested in my Sri Lankan cookbook, I definitely encourage you to call them up and see if they have (or want to get) a copy for you.
Oh, and Omnivore (cookbook store) definitely both ordered books and even scheduled an event, so even though I don’t have a photo of the store here, I’m including them in the list.
Some of these stores might be closed in person, but they’re likely doing online orders, like our local bookstore here in Oak Park. Shop small, shop local, support our bookstores!
Books Inc. in Mountain View
https://www.booksinc.net/MountainView
Kepler’s Books and Magazines, Menlo Park: https://www.keplers.com
Omnivore, San Francisco: https://omnivorebooks.myshopify.com
Sausalito Books by the Bay: https://www.sausalitobooksbythebay.com
******
Rest of the standard Feast book info below:
Feast is now an Amazon bestseller! Woot! COOKBOOK DETAILS:
1) ORDERING: You can order A Feast of Serendib (signed / personalized, if you like) directly from me right now, at www.serendibkitchen.com, or from my publisher, Mascot Books: https://mascotbooks.com/…/coo…/regional/a-feast-of-serendib/. The limited release paperback can only be ordered directly from my website. If you’re in the U.S., you can also add on my hand-roasted Sri Lankan curry powder.
A Feast of Serendib launched officially March 6, 2020, and we hope it’ll be widely available in bookstores and libraries. You can request it from your local bookstore or library! Please do! It’ll also be available on Amazon US, UK, and Canada; you can order it online.
ORDERING INFO:
978-1-64543-275-3 Hardcover (distributed by Ingram)
978-1-64543-377-4 ebook (on Amazon, etc.)
2370000696366 (trade paperback; only available directly from me, at Serendib Kitchen site; you can also buy the hardcover or ebook there)
2) REVIEW OR BUY IT HERE (reviews are hugely helpful in boosting visibility!):
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/…/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_QmauEbJTRFD…
Books-a-Million
https://www.booksamillion.com/…/Mary-Anne-Mo…/9781645432753…
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-feast-of-ser…/1135510523…
Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/…/sh…/51332647-a-feast-of-serendib
3) JOIN THE COOKBOOK CLUB: If you’d like to support the development of more mostly Sri Lankan recipes, I’d love to have you join the cookbook club — for $2 / month, you’ll get recipes delivered to your inbox (fairly) regularly: https://www.patreon.com/mohanraj. For $10 / month, you can subscribe for fabulous treats mailed to you! (US-only).
4) FOODIE SOCIAL MEDIA:
My personal FB page: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/mamohanraj
Serendib Kitchen blog: http://serendibkitchen.com
Serendib Kitchen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serendib_kitchen/
Serendib FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/132029834135500/
Serendib FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/mohanrajserendib/
5) PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY starred review: “Mohanraj (Bodies in Motion), a literature professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, introduces readers to the comforting cuisine of Sri Lanka in this illuminating collection of more than 100 recipes. Waves of immigration from China, England, the Netherlands, and Portugal influenced the unique cuisine of Sri Lanka, Mohanraj writes, as evidenced by such dishes as Chinese rolls (a take on classic egg rolls in the form of stuffed crepes that are breaded and fried); fish cutlets (a culinary cousin of Dutch bitterballen fried croquettes); and English tea sandwiches (filled here with beets, spinach, and carrots). With Sri Lanka’s proximity to India, curry figures heavily, with options for chicken, lamb, cuttlefish, or mackerel. A number of poriyal dishes, consisting of sautéed vegetables with a featured ingredient, such as asparagus or brussels sprouts, showcase a Tamil influence. Throughout, Mohanraj does a superb job of combining easily sourced ingredients with clear, instructive guidance and menu recommendations for all manner of events, including a Royal Feast for over 200 people. This is a terrific survey of an overlooked cuisine.”
*****
Thanks so much for your support! Indie publishing is absolutely reliant on word of mouth and the support of friends, family, and friendly internet acquaintances.
— Mary Anne
I got sort of obsessed by the idea of making a springtime cake with mango curd and passionfruit buttercream frosting, decorated with fresh mango and edible forsythias, the sort of thing one might serve for Easter. Forsythias don’t actually taste like much, like most edible flowers, but v. pretty!
I usually do a lemon daffodil bundt cake for Easter brunch, and in fact, Lori Rader-Day would probably get cranky with me if I didn’t, because she loves it so, but that always made me a little nervous because daffodils aren’t actually edible, so I had to carefully make sure that however I decorated the cake with them, there was no risk of anyone eating a bit of daffodil. Usually I stuck them in a vase in the center of the bundt, but that’s kind of goofy. Anyway.
Once I get a recipe idea in my head, I have a really hard time letting it go, even if it’s not very practical. I even got a little cranky with the kids because they kept needing things from me when all I wanted to do was futz with my curd and frosting and cake (in the end, Kevin took care of both lunch and dinner so I could work on the cake).
I’m not going to give you all a recipe, because it’s not perfect — the mango curd was too sweet, it needed some tang from lime, and all of us agreed that we wanted, oh, twice as much fresh mango — a whole layer of it, along with the curd. And on top of all that, the cake itself, which I thought I could shortcut with a Trader Joe’s vanilla cake, was fine, but if I’m going to this much effort to make a cake, I want it better than fine, so clearly I’m going to have to work to get a yellow cake recipe I’m happy with.
The forsythias are only here for another week or so, and we really don’t need to eat another cake right now (especially since I just bought five different flavors of ice cream), so I suspect it may be another year before I come back to perfect this cake. I actually ended up giving half of it away to neighbors, leaving tupperwares on their doorsteps with a little note that we’ve been social distancing for more than two weeks, so hopefully they trusted the food enough to eat it. (Don’t tell me if you didn’t, neighbors, it’s fine!)
But the cake is a good idea, I think. I’ll get there eventually. And it’s certainly pretty, and Kavi said she liked it enough that she’d want it for a birthday cake, so I guess that’s not so bad then. The passionfruit buttercream really was pretty darn good — take a regular buttercream recipe, stir in 1/2 cup of passionfruit puree. Yum. SO GOOD. I had to fight the urge to just keep eating it straight out of the bowl.
Started harvesting daffodils from the cutting garden for the house, which makes me happy, but I clearly need to bake more scones…
I’ve mostly been pretty chill about pandemic cooking, since we were lucky enough to start out with a well-stocked chest freezer, pantry, etc., but then I ran out of coconut milk a week ago, and boom! I immediately went and placed an order to have 24 cans shipped to us. A relief when they arrived; we can survive a few more months now.
We’ve also been going through a lot more popcorn than usual, since we’ve taken to watching an episode of Dr. Who with the kids every night in our bed. Coconut milk and popcorn — who knew that these would be the essential staples?
Roasted curry powder = pretty. Also delicious.
Passionfruit & Vanilla Ice Cream, with Rubies.
Do you remember those ruby chocolates with passionfruit cream centers that completely failed to set, a few months back? I threw them in the freezer, because I’m frugal that way, figuring I’d come up with something to do with them eventually. Last night, I pulled half of them out, chopped them up, and then stirred them into a fresh batch of vanilla ice cream, along with about 1/4 c. of passionfruit puree. Reader, it was good.
I’m going to make a second batch, the next time I can get cream from the grocery store (they were only able to deliver half of what we’d ordered), and then will freeze for a party some sunny day from now. We’ll gather together again…
Heh. I went to go look up the new channel for my cooking videos — we’ll be putting another one up tomorrow, me and Kavi making Mango Fluff — and found that it only had one subscriber, which wasn’t even me. So I subscribed! Now there are two!