Category: Uncategorized

I’m so happy that I can get idli-sambar delivered to my house, which has never been possible before (per previous note, there are a lot more Indian options on Grubhub for us than there used to be!). I was a little hesitant to try getting masala dosa delivered, because I wasn’t sure it’d travel well going 30 minutes through rush hour traffic, but I’m probably going to try it sometime when it’s not rush hour, when it’ll take more like 15 minutes. South Indian delivery options! YAY! Tonight’s order from Siri Indian:

• • idli with sambar add-on, came with coconut chutney, DELICIOUS (one order has 3 idli)

• • mirchi bajji (fried chili) appetizer — eh. Maybe it was good when it was just fried, but after driving to us, this was very boring and dry. I had one bite and then left the rest for Kevin. Might be good with a sauce.

• • honey chili fried cauliflower appetizer — also eh, but mostly because it’s not really my sort of thing; I was curious. It’s from their Indo-Chinese fusion section, and it’s cauliflower battered and fried, in a slightly spicy sweet sauce. Someone else might love it, not for me.

• • fish curry — delicious, would happily order again

• • goat vindaloo — tasty, but the goat meat was both fatty and chewy, which, honestly, might be what goat meat is mostly like, it’s been a few years since I last had it, I think, and it wasn’t spicy enough to call it vindaloo in my opinion. But fine.

• • palak paneer — disappointingly salty, alas. Wouldn’t get again, which is a shame, because this is one of our Indian food stand-by dishes

• • garlic naan — good.

But did I mention the idli-sambar? 🙂 Next time, I might just get a double order of that.

Tamarind-chili scones — starting to bake for the next round of treat boxes. Eliana did most of the baking for these. 🙂

Thanksgiving morning starts slow here, but with a nice moment of wrapping up one of my marshmallow samplers and a copy of A Feast of Serendib; the recipient will be picking it up from my porch to take as a Thanksgiving hosting gift.

(I almost wrote ‘hostess’ gift, and then I thought, why should I assume it’s a woman hosting? There’s so much baked into our language defaults…)

The flash sale is still running today (I’ll link in comments), in case you want a marshmallow or confection sampler, BUT ALSO, everything on my site (link also in comments) is now 20% off for Black Friday, which I gather is now being called Black Week in some places?

We’re running the sale from 11/23 -11/30. I don’t run a lot of sales, so if you’ve been thinking of picking up a copy of my cookbooks, now is your chance. (I have only a few copies of the Feast paperback left on hand; I’ll re-order tomorrow, but can’t guarantee I’ll get them here in time for holiday shipping.)

Margins are tiny on small businesses, so we can’t offer the kind of 30-40-etc% discounts you’ll see at big box stores, because we’d actually lose money. But does the big box store pack your marshmallows with love? It does not.

Marshmallows in sampler: classic passionfruit, peppermint dipped in dark chocolate, mulled apple cider and honey, rolled in powdered sugar and cinnamon

Carnivore Oak Park is going to start carrying a little of my food-themed jewelry and hand-sewn indie-designed tea towels; perfect for your holiday gifting! I’ll be dropping off these pieces later today (probably around noon), in two options – rich saffron threads, chili flake and gold leaf. Hyper-local – I live just a block away.

One of the libraries has a monthly spice club, and they had me do little curry powder packets for their club – Eliana packaged them up for me, with some recipes, etc., and it just came out very cute.

Quick note for locals that there are jars of freshly-made Sri Lankan dark-roasted curry powder (lovely as a grill rub, or on popcorn, as well as in curry) at Carnivore Oak Park, along with signed cookbooks.

And Roshani noticed that there were some hardcovers of Vegan Serendib at The Book Table, so I stopped in and signed those too.

Slept very weirdly last night, just waking up over and over. I feel okay right now, but moving slowly, and I suspect I’ll crash at some point today. Oh well!

I still managed to assemble the flash sale orders this morning. Next steps are packaging them up, adding ice packs to the ones with confections, asking Stephanie to make up paid shipping labels (she needs dimensions and weight for that), and then running them over to the post office.

Spent a little time this weekend making elderberry syrup, which is supposed to be a tonic for colds and such. It’s a little bitter until you sweeten it with honey, but it does taste like it’s good for you.

One tip I found said to freeze the berries before trying to remove them from the stems, and that definitely made it much easier to pop them off without making a big mess. Last pic is elderberry syrup and elderflower syrup. Would be amusing to serve paired ice cream scoops made with those.