I Hate Naming Things

I could use a little naming help. I’m developing 40-ish recipes for Vegan Serendib, and we’d like to offer a digital supplement of just those recipes, primarily for people who’ve bought Feast already, and don’t want to buy a whole other cookbook with a lot of duplication. I don’t know what to call it, though.

Serendib Supplement is logical, but sounds like I’m selling vitamins. I don’t love it.

Bonus Serendib?

Serendib: Second Helpings (vegan edition)?

Something else?

Lord, I hate naming things. Help.

Our First Vegan Serendib Pre-order

We got our first pre-order of Vegan Serendib, today, woohoo! Which also reminded me that I should tell you that it’s now available for pre-order. 🙂

I do want to be clear that there’s a lot of overlap with Feast, if you already own that — I’m developing about 40 new recipes for Vegan, along with about 60+ brought over from Feast.

Eventually, we’re thinking we’ll issue “Serendib Supplements” of some kind, so that people who bought Feast can get the new recipes from Vegan without buying a whole new cookbook. But I’m not honestly sure how quickly that’ll happen. I think we can get the digital version together quickly, but the print editions may take a bit. (And then the same thing with Gluten-Free Serendib, which we’re planning for 2022 release).

And someday, when there’s enough new recipes, we’ll hopefully do a glorious two-volume Feast of Serendib — twice as big, with ALL the recipes thus far, so completists can get everything in a coherent package. A real feast. 🙂 That’s at least 3 years out, though, maybe more.

So with all that in mind, here’s your pre-order link!

https://serendib-kitchen.myshopify.com

Dragon Eggs

More photos and a recipe tomorrow, but I will leave you tonight with these adorable chocolate-cayenne gingerbread dragon eggs that just came out of the oven. So cute, and as I hoped, the crackling of the dough really adds to the dragon scale effect. You get these ideas in your head, and you’re never quite sure if they’ll work out. Will try gilding them in the morning, after they’ve cooled….

Devilish Delight

Interesting — the Montreal Gazette had previously ran a piece on Feast, but they’ve also now pulled out the deviled shrimp recipe for a separate piece.

Six O’Clock Solution: Shrimp a devilish if costly delight

Serves 6 to 8 3 tablespoons (45 mL) vegetable oil 3 to 5 medium onions, diced 1 teaspoon (5 mL) black mustard seed 1 teaspoon (5 mL) cumin seed 1 to 2 tablespoons (15 to 30 mL) cayenne, to taste 2 pounds (1 kg) shrimp, peeled, deveined 2/3 cup (150

Painting with Luster Dust

A nice decorating alternative to dipping in chocolate is painting with luster dust (keep a tiny brush dedicated for cooking) mixed with a bit of vodka. The vodka won’t add any flavor, but will help the dust adhere. This is quick and fun and festive!

A GREAT Sandwich

This was a GREAT sandwich — if Roshani Anandappa and I ever open up that little Sri Lankan cafe, I’m going to argue for this being on the menu. Steak sandwich with brinjal moju (eggplant pickle). Yumyum. Maybe served with a little kale sambol on the side.

Hmm…maybe when we do the cookbook re-launch (planned for our book birthday month of March) and we can hopefully gather again, I can partner with Carnivore Oak Park to offer this as a special for a week.

And Amanda Daly, maybe we rent the Daly Bagel for a little pop-up event in the evening once spring rolls around…I had some brinjal moju yesterday on an everything bagel, and it was super-yum.

Very Cheap, Incredibly Delicious

Can you tell I’m cleaning out my phone? 🙂 An uppuma photo from last week that I forgot to post. Now I want uppuma again. It was pretty funny listening to the latest episode of Home Cooking, and hearing Samin Nosrat learn about uppuma. I think of her as such a professional, I figure she knows basically everything about food, but she’d never heard of uppuma, and I just felt so sad for her.

This is very very basic uppuma, the kind I make when I’m in a rush — five minutes from start to finish, and just water, cream o’ wheat (semolina), butter and salt for ingredients. I lived on this stuff in grad school, generally with mackerel and egg curry. Very cheap, incredibly delicious.

If you have a few extra minutes to make it more fancy / nutritious, you’d start with melting the butter (or ghee, or just using oil), sautéing some cashews and peas and mustard seeds in there, maybe some curry leaves and chopped green chili, etc. and so on — but honestly, I love it just like this.

A Scolding

When I’m in production baking mode, I often enlist Kevin to help out, but I have to be a little careful with instructions. He’s a great cook, but the last time I had him make cookie dough for me, he used vanilla extract instead of beans.

And quality vanilla extract is great, I use it a lot for baking, but there’s something about using the actual beans that just produces a better cookie, I think. I’m not enough of a food expert to tell you why, though!

I scolded him; he won’t do that again. 🙂

(I get both my extract and beans from Penzey’s. Pricey, but SO good.)