Holiday sale package photo — coming soon in the Serendib shop. This one is:
– Pumpkin Curry tea towel (plant motifs by Kavya Whyte)
($55 + shipping)
with Mary Anne Mohanraj
Holiday sale package photo — coming soon in the Serendib shop. This one is:
– Pumpkin Curry tea towel (plant motifs by Kavya Whyte)
($55 + shipping)
Here’s the Wisconsin live radio segment from earlier today!
Recipes From Sri Lanka
Cooking traditional foods connects us to our roots. We talk to the author of a cookbook that celebrates her Sri Lankan heritage.
I spent a little time this morning putting together possibilities for individual treat boxes for sale. I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to offer these — I’m going to wait until the end of November, to be sure I have enough time to fulfill all the Patreon orders, and also to closer to the end of the semester.
But if you think you might want to order a treat box for yourself or a gift, I think these will be $25 within the U.S. (Sorry, international folks! Someday I hope to scale up to be able to offer this sort of thing internationally. I have to figure out food regulations, plus international shipping is brutal.)
Locals doing porch pick-up, they’ll be $17.
Check back Dec 1 if interested. Quantities will be very limited, esp. if you want Christmas delivery!
*****
– a few homemade marshmallows (flavors to be finalized in the next few days)
– a few homemade marshmallows (flavors to be finalized in the next few days)
I didn’t make this in time for Diwali (had to wait for my new 5-cup bundt pan to arrive), but had a lot of fun making (and eating) it tonight. Pooja Makhijani’s celebration rose, cardamom, and pistachio cake for King Arthur Flour’s site, absolutely perfect with a cup of chai at teatime (or in my case tonight, right before bed). Thanks, Pooja!
(If you don’t have a 5-cup bundt pan, and don’t want an excuse to buy one, she notes that this fits nicely in a loaf pan.)
Okay, here’s a cooking question. I was buying some Bakto extracts, and they had smoke extract, and I have this dragon theme going for my Patreon treat boxes, so I HAD to get some smoke extract, right?
But now I realize I have no idea how to use it. I’ve used liquid smoke in a curry, but I don’t think this is the same thing. I suspect people mostly use it for barbecue?
I smelled it, and it smells nice and interesting. I tasted a bit, and the extract is VERY strong, so it’s honestly a little hard to get a real sense of the flavor that way.
What I actually want to do is put it in a sweet of some kind — a marshmallow or cookie or truffle. Thoughts? Is this going to be interesting, or a disaster? I haven’t found any recipes online using it.
You know what feels really great? When you imagine a thing, and you make it, and it actually comes out the way you intended. I LOVE how this pumpkin curry tea towel came out! Kavi did the pumpkin and vines and leaf; I did the recipe and overall design. I tried to pick a cheerful, slightly child-like font that was similar to Kavi’s handwriting, which is neat and rounded.
Sri Lankan peeps, I feel like this would be a nice gift for Amma, don’t you think? If you have a cooking Amma, that is.
I had thought it wouldn’t be affordable for me to sell tea towels in my own shop, with shipping multiple directions, etc., but it turns out that Spoonflower has a fill-a-yard option that works really well. I can fit 4 tea towels on a yard of fabric, which brings the per unit cost down considerably. So if you’re sewing yourself, this is a great thing to know about, and if you don’t sew, I can actually sell them.
They’re still not cheap, I’m afraid — I need to price them at $24 each to make it worthwhile. But you get a significant discount on them if you get them as part of a Patreon treat box (sign up by November 30th for the December boxes). (http://patreon.com/mohanraj)
I think we can offer some package options too, since that saves us on the shipping cost part — I’m thinking:
• Feast hardcover + 2 tea towels + curry powder ($85)
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sri Lankan cashew milk toffee (which is really closer to a fudge than a toffee, despite the name) with silver leaf applied to it, but I wanted to try for Diwali today, and I think it looks great!
Not at all easy to do neatly, even with the two sets of wooden tweezers that came with the silver leaf — it blows around wildly in the slightest breath of air. But if you give up on neatness, it works just fine.
These will be going in the December Patreon treat boxes — well, the ones Anand doesn’t eat will be going in the treat boxes. He adores milk toffee.