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I had an iGov meeting from 8:30 – 9:30, and then I lured Anand into accompanying me to the farmer’s market with the promise of fresh donuts. He didn’t realize that it also involved being a beast of burden until AFTER we had gotten there…

Saw multiple people I knew, including the OPALGA+ folks staffing the donut booth, some old friends, a parent from OPRF who knew me from board meetings, etc. Anand was a little bewildered, “Do all these people actually know you? Do you know them?” Well, they know my face, anyway — that’s part of what happens when you run for office. Suddenly, you get a lot more visible, and people have opinions about you…

Lots of fun stuff at the market, per usual. Along with the staples, I got a ghost cucumber (supposed to be thin-skinned, basically like a regular cucumber, but cool-looking), and some sprigarello (a leafy Italian broccoli, apparently). Not sure what to do with the latter, suggestions welcome! We got a 3-year-old cheddar and a 6-year-old cheddar because Anand asked what the difference was, so we’ll do a taste test later and see which he likes better.

I’m mostly excited to make myself a tomato-mozzarella-basil salad for dinner, with olive oil and balsamic. I’d do it sooner, but the next few hours will also be hectic — I have a Clarion training from 12 – 1:30, and then we immediately drive Kavi to the airport for her flight to Argentina, and then we come back and drive Anand to a birthday party at 4.

But there will be chill time after that. And I got half a peach pie, so that’ll likely be part of dinner as well…

I get a lot of spam related to A Feast of Serendib (I think because it was hybrid published, and that put me on a list somewhere), from people who claim that it has great potential and they want to partner with me to publish it.

Which I think basically always means they want me to give them some thousands of dollars and they’ll make vague promises and do nothing effective to sell more copies — it’s actually super-annoying, and I particularly hate that they call my cell phone with these spam approaches.

But this was the funniest approach yet (via e-mail this time) — because, you know, it’s a COOKBOOK:

*****

“I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to inquire about the film rights to your book that is stated in the subject line of this email. I believe that your work has tremendous potential for a cinematic adaptation and I would love to discuss the possibility of a collaboration between our respective industries.

As you may know, our production company has a successful track record of adapting popular books into compelling and critically acclaimed films. We have a team of experienced filmmakers who are passionate about bringing great stories to the screen, and we believe that your work would make a fantastic addition to our portfolio.”

*****

I’m now trying to figure out HOW you’d do a cinematic adaptation of my cookbook.

• let Maitreyi Ramakrishnan dance for you, while she gently plucks the rose petals for a traditional rose petal salad?

• next Kumail Nanjani (shirtless, of course) and Hassan Minhaj will have a vehement debate in the kitchen, about whether or not potatoes belong in biryani?

Maybe it could be done after all….

(EDIT: Here’s the book! https://serendibkitchen.com/a-feast-of-serendib/)

If you’re going to have Sri Lankans over, short eats are pretty much mandatory. I think I have rolls and mackerel cutlets down, but my patties still need work — they look fine when waiting to fry, but when we fried them, they didn’t puff up properly — I think we may have over-worked the pastry dough. And my filling was a little bland. Apologies to those using my cookbook! Must continue practicing, clearly.

The problem is, the only way I have the patience to do this kind of fiddly cooking, is if I have people helping, and it’s particularly nice when they are people who already know how to do it, like my sister and cousins…clearly, they just have to visit more often!

We also baked Kavi’s birthday cake — Sri Lankan butter cake, done in a ribbon style, hence the mixing color into the different layers…

Thanks for the middle-of-the-night cooking help, Sharms Murraj, Natalie John, and Michele Jayk!

Yesterday morning’s curry powder grinding. I couldn’t seem to get my iPhone to capture the colors correctly — it was all coming out much more cool and washed out than my eyes were seeing them. So I ended up trying the ‘warm vivid’ filter — and it’s a little TOO warm, but closer to reality than the unfiltered version.

I’m not really a filter girl, but this was interesting.

Curry leaves, starting to toast. That scent — there’s nothing like it.

Curry leaves, partly toasted.

All the toasted spices are in a big tray now, cooling off — if you try to grind them when they’re still hot, they generate a lot of steam and clog up the grinder and it’s a nuisance. Better to let them cool first — I’ll add cinnamon stick, cloves, and caradmom seeds tomorrow, then grind it all together.

Bath and bed for me now. Sleep well, munchkins.

(Or, y’know, good morning! Or good afternoon! Depending on where you’re reading this from…)

Found these cubes of ginger-garlic paste at the local Pete’s grocery store, tried them last night — good! We sometimes buy the jars of ginger-garlic paste, but it’s not as good as fresh. This is closer to fresh, and a sanity saver when you’re trying to get a quick curry out on a weeknight.

I ate really well yesterday at the Global Asian Studies start of semester potluck. My plate was very full, so please imagine me eating rice and chicken curry and okra-potato fry (pictured), but also spam musubi, green chicken and chili tamales, a fabulous matcha and fruit curd cake, homemade bread with homemade ramp butter…I pretty much rolled out of that potluck. Very happily.

This department, we know how to eat! Lovely to catch up with colleagues and students again…

Poor Stephanie is trying to get out my cookbook orders on a dining table that’s just covered in ornaments. Oops. We’ll get a tree today or tomorrow, and then decorate over the weekend, so by Monday, the table should be clear again. She seems to think she can manage.

Pictured here, a LOT of curry powder. She came in, looked at what I’d packaged up, shook her head dubiously, and said she thought we’d need more. Roger, wilco — guess I know what else I’m doing over the weekend.

Toasting seeds for curry powder — before & after. We’re hoping to get the rest of the Kickstarter cookbooks out by Wednesday, fingers crossed, and I needed to make more curry powder…

Stephanie is coming by shortly; our main goal for this morning is to get the rest of the international orders out the door, so they arrive in time for the holidays.

Well, that’s nice to see — Vegan Serendib, still holding IngramSpark’s #1 and #2 positions in Indian and South Asian Cooking.

I mean, it’s not kazillion units, as you can see, but it’s not nothing. And I’m hoping we’ll sell quite a few more as we approach the holidays and Christmas shopping kicks into full gear.

(IngramSpark is the big printer / distributor we use.)