Serendib Kitchen

Sunday dinner this week, both Kavi and I were busy with something, so it ended up being Anand and Kev doing the cooking, in a somewhat minimal way. Kevin apologizes for not taking photos of Anand pounding the pork with his new Thor’s hammer meat tenderizer. Apparently, it took a little persuading to keep Anand from pounding it until pulverized.

They were trying to recreate the meat in a sweet orange sauce that the kids get at school — the end result was tasty, though Kavi says the school version is notably sweeter. We liked this, though.

Sunday’s ice cream was Anand’s choice — homemade chocolate with Nutella stirred in. Pretty good, though I used the chocolate ice cream recipe that came with the machine (just stirring cocoa into cold cream, essentially), and both Kev and I thought the end result was a little grainier than we would’ve liked. But it was fine, and the kids were delighted, so all was well. It’s almost gone now — even mediocre ice cream is still ice cream. 🙂

Planning to run a little Valentine’s / Galentine’s Day flash sale tomorrow (Thursday) of sweets, hand-roasted Sri Lankan curry powder, and Feast of Serendib cookbooks on sale ($30 for hardcover, $15 for paperbacks, $10 off, such a deal!)

I am feeling a desire to immerse myself in sweetness.

If you’d like to be tagged into that, comment below — I’d be planning to mail out by Saturday, February 8th, so should reach throughout the U.S. before the 14th, no problem. I can only ship food within the U.S., sorry, but cookbooks will also be on sale, and happy to ship those anywhere, and also to sign and/or personalize!

We might be sliding a little Feast book launch party (with treats!) into the SLF’s March Deep Dish. 🙂

#feastbooklaunch
#serendibkitchen
#slf

https://www.facebook.com/events/111255013657409/

I might have to start admitting that I’m a *little* bit of an actual cook. Production cooking for Friday’s Bite Nite. My kitchen was full of trays of curry buns, and I was quite pleased with how the little serving boats came out, with buns nestled in kale sambol. This variety: jackfruit & chickpea curry buns, topped with a little organic hemp seed. Mmm….

Chili chocolates for Bite Nite. Straight up dark chocolate with cayenne blended in. They ended up quite spicy, and I kept warning people of that as they picked them up, but none of the ones who wanted to try spicy chocolate heeded my warnings. They just grinned and walked away, excitedly carrying their chocolate. Spice-heads!

One woman swung back later to tell me that she’d been nibbling on her piece all evening, and it was very good, but yes, very spicy.

*****

For Bite Nite, I tried making milk toffee with sultanas (golden raisins) added in, along with the chopped cashews. I was thinking of it as Royal Milk Toffee, since doing that adds to the expense and it feels more luxurious…

Adding sultanas is a common traditional variation for milk toffee. It added just enough moisture to my recipe that it set differently — not quite firm enough to cut cleanly into squares per usual, so I ended up scooping irregular fudge-like chunks to put into little confectionery paper cups.

One man asked what was in it, and then sadly said, “I hate raisins,” before he walked away. So these are not for everyone! But I actually really like them.

I *think* I might even like them better than my regular milk toffee; the fruitiness contrasts beautifully with the fudge-like sweetness of the rest of the dessert.

(Stephanie agreed. 🙂 )

Odd start to the weekend — I slept until almost 10, which was not my plan — I must have needed it badly. When I got up, went pretty much straight into a Serendib Press work meeting with Stephanie and Heather. Coffee was helpful. Coffee and meds!

Heather took the train out from Ann Arbor this weekend, to help with Bite Nite, but also to get some work done with me, meet Stephanie in person (also hopefully Cee Gee and Karen for the SLF), and have a sort of annual meeting for Serendib Press, though I didn’t really realize that’s what we were doing until halfway through the meeting.

We worked for 1.5 hrs, mostly recapping where we are at this point (Heather’s been working with me for a year now; Stephanie started last fall, so close to six months?), sketching out rough plans for the next few years of the Press.

Immediate goals are getting Feast up and off the ground well, hopefully. Next goal (might not happen until summer) is getting my backlist back under my control and start producing it again, making it easier for people to buy my books (and hopefully setting up some nice passive income to sustain future anthology and other projects). It’s going to be challenging, but hopefully productive? We’ll see. The shoestring budget is more of a cobweb at the moment…

At 1, Kevin, Heather, and I are going to spend an hour on organizing Serendib Press stuff in the basement, which is utter chaos right now — it was so harried prepping for yesterday’s Bite Night after a full week of teaching work that I completely failed to keep things organized, so we’re literally tripping over boxes and such at the moment, can’t get to the freezer, etc. This can’t go on.

But first, a break. I’m going to put a load of laundry in, then play a video game and watch some dumb TV, rest a little. Heather and I were on our feet for about six straight hours last night (me after a day of teaching), so am a bit tired. I definitely am not in physical shape for doing food production work full-time. 🙂

Lots of people asked us last night where our restaurant was located (I should have put Serendib Press instead of Serendib Kitchen on the sign, which might have helped), and I admit, every time I said, “Oh, there’s no restaurant — I’m a writer, not a cook,” I felt a little relieved!

(All of which just gives me even more admiration for the delicious Filipino food produced by Chef Roel and his family for pig & fire — I think they have another event happening in the city today. They have a young kid, his wife is a resident; the food world is tough, people! It was great seeing them last night — their delectable pancit and lumpia sustained me through the long hours…)

Several people asked me if Serendib Kitchen did catering. After I got over my first impulse to laugh maniacally, I admitted that it was not outside the realm of possibility (I actually did a bit in college!), but there’s a set of food licensing, renting space in a commercial kitchen, etc. stuff that would need to happen first. Carnivore (only a block away) did offer to rent me space in their commercial kitchen…

It would be a VERY occasional thing if so. But, um, possible…? Esp. this year, while promoting the cookbook. Locals, talk to me if interested. We’re also planning on some pop-ups at Carnivore, The Beer Shop, etc. — calendar coming soon!

#bitenite2020

Two Sri Lankan cuisine questions:

a) I’m making seeni sambol buns and beef curry buns (mas paan) for the Bite Nite event on Friday. I’m thinking of using a food processor on the (already cooked) seeni sambol to chop it a bit, so the onions are a little less stringy in texture. Is that going to lead to disaster? I haven’t seen a recipe that calls for that, but I think it might be good. Thoughts? (In retrospect, it would be better to just finely chop the onions if you’re going to do that, but I didn’t think of that beforehand, and now the seeni sambol is made, so…)

Lovely lunch with Lori at Forno Rosso. Mmmm….

(I like prosciutto, but ended up pulling it off, as I liked this pizza even better without. Buffalo mozzarella, sautéed mushrooms, roasted tomato. So good!)

Sunday dinner this week was actually a full meal! Yay, us! We had crudité! We had bread! And it only took 15 minutes or so to prep together (aside from the ice cream) (plus baking time).

Admittedly, we bought a bag of frozen brown-and-serve rolls, so making bread was mostly a matter of sticking those on a tray and adding it to the oven ten minutes before the chicken was done, but hey, I’ll take it. 🙂

This week’s menu:

• crudité with carrots, bell pepper, ranch dip, hummus (set out in advance, so hungry people could nibble while cooking / waiting, and get some vegetables into us — Anand said, “I’m so hungry, even raw carrots taste delicious!” Yes, that is my sneaky plan, child.)

• baked chicken thighs wrapped in prosciutto and topped with mozzarella (no need for anything else in the baking dish, since the prosciutto and cheese give plenty of salt, and the chicken gives off liquids that it cooks in, making a beautifully moist result — just bake in oven @ 400 for 35 minutes). Kevin grated the mozzarella (you could use pre-grated, but Kev is picky, and if he’s willing to grate it, that’s fine with me!), and the kids helped with wrapping the chicken and sprinkling the cheese. The cheese did get a *little* browner than ideal, so you might want to cover with foil for the first half of cooking if you’re being fussy, but definitely remove it after that, so the liquids can cook off and the cheese can brown.

• asparagus roasted in olive oil, salt, and pepper (Kavi did most of this, with a few reminders of process along the way; I’m determined to get the kids really used to roasting vegetables before they start high school, so they can do it easily for themselves once they leave us — we prepped it along with the chicken, but waited and added it to the oven along with the bread, about 10 minutes before the chicken was due to be done)

• warm, crusty rolls, served with a) olive oil & fresh grated Parmesan (for Kavi), b) olive oil & balsamic vinegar (for me and Kevin)

 

• two varieties of homemade ice cream (vanilla with chocolate chips / passionfruit with fresh berries, made by Anand and me the Saturday afternoon before)

It was lovely.

(And I love that photo of Kevin’s hands working, and Kavi’s hands beside him as she watched and learned.)

*****

We added something new this time — we went around with “Rose, rose, thorn, bud” first, which was a little awkward since none of us had done that before, but if we do it a few more times, I’m hopeful that it’ll help get the kids in the habit of pleasant dinner table conversation.

The main goal of that is to get them used to actually taking turns leading the conversation, asking people questions about the good and hard things in their lives, not interrupting too much, etc. I would like to raise socially adept children, if possible, who can adapt to different conversational styles, be welcoming and inclusive, etc., though it does take a little extra work given neurodiverse frameworks. (And of course, if we learn more about their lives and what’s going on with them, that’s good too.)