with Mary Anne Mohanraj
Our Valentine’s weekend brunch, courtesy Kavya.
(How much mess was generated in this process? So much. Did we make her clean it up? Not this time — we’re mostly working on her being confident in the kitchen right now; we’ll get to ‘clean as you go’ when she’s a little steadier on the actual cooking part. Our Valentine’s present to her was silently cleaning it all up later in the day… )
Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all. One of the best bits of the internet is sharing these holidays with you all.
Funniest bit of this morning — Anand was so focused on the show he was watching on his iPad that he walked right past this multiple times (getting his breakfast quesadilla, feeding the pets), before Mommy finally said, “Anand, Happy Valentine’s Day!” And then he looked up and saw this and ran over.
Both kids were most excited by the chocolate-covered strawberries (Kavi is packing some of those and the raspberries up to take to school right now to share with her friends), but the dried fruit will keep better.
If we weren’t hosting an event on Sunday (SLF Chicago chapter meeting, all SF/F readers, writers, and geeks welcome), I’d probably end up freezing some of it for a party (or a rainy day) down the road.
Little hearts courtesy PaperSource — I’ll save them for a craft project for me or the kids…
So, a big question for those who like my stuff. Food stuff, writing stuff, etc. Be my market research.
Kev and I have been talking about what’s manageable for me in terms of cooking and shipping and the like, and we’re thinking one weekend / month is generally do-able for having one of these little flash sales of books and sweets and soaps and the like. Serendib Kitchen / Press / Home / etc.
And we were planning that, but then Kel Bachus suggested that I might want to think about also setting it up as a quarterly subscription, so that people who knew they wanted the little things I make could sign up for them in advance and be sure they would get them, rather than possibly missing out on flash sales.
Which reminded me of back when Gavin and Kelly did their chapbook, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, which I loved, and they offered one subscription level that was the chocolate subscription, which was so brilliant and indulgent — you’d get your magazine, but also get a lovely interesting bar of chocolate to enjoy with it. I loved it.
So with these things in mind — is there interest? I’m honestly not sure what this would look like, but something like:
Base level:
– a little printed chapbook of domestic writings — recipes & gardening and maybe home decor, probably with some fiction and/or poetry thrown in
– some kind of confectionery, probably a new recipe
– a tiny surprise present of some kind — maybe a set of postcards, maybe a little crocheted flower, who knows…
And then maybe some upgrade options:
a) some kind of bath product (soap, bath salts, lip balms, that kind of thing)
b) existing books
c) curry powder
(I’d plan on hiring someone local for packing and shipping and possibly order management too — in fact, whether I do the subscription or not, it’d be good for me to look into that. A nice energetic college student would be ideal, someone who doesn’t mind coming by my place and hauling boxes one weekend / month. If you know someone like that, let me know… That’d probably be something like $15 / hr.)
I don’t know pricing for the subscription yet — would depend a lot on shipping costs, etc. Maybe $30 + shipping for the base level, per shipment? (I’m thinking quarterly at first, can possibly move to monthly if it goes well.) If there’s interest, I can talk to Kevin and Stephanie to figure out if we actually have capacity to do this.
The nicest thing about it, from my point of view, is that I think I can use it as a way of collecting and generating material for the larger nonfiction book I’ve been wanting to work on…
Would you be interested in that kind of subscription, for you or as a gift?
What do you think? Should I do it?
(Can I encourage Americans to make a little extra effort to patronize Chinese restaurants esp. but also generally Asian restaurants right now? News reports that they’re getting hit with a notable downturn in customer business across the U.S. due to unfounded coronavirus fears.)
Lunch date with Kevin at Mama Thai, which is a convenient two block walk away (if that). The lunch special (small appetizer, small soup, entree) is actually too much food for us if we both order it; we ended up taking the potstickers home for Anand, who adores them.
And because I added their steamed shumai off the main menu (which I adore and cannot resist — sometimes I just get myself two orders of shumai for dinner), we ended up taking the green curry chicken and rice home too, and ate it for dinner.
I did doctor it a bit — it was a little watery for my taste (I’m guessing they have a big vat of it going for the lunch special, which is totally reasonable, but means it’s not their best cooking generally). So I cooked it down for another 5-10 minutes on the stovetop and stirred the rice in, which took it to just the concentrated spicy green goodness I was craving. I would’ve taken a photo, but I ate it too fast. 
It’s not the smilingest photo of Kevin, but I include it because he is carefully taking all the mushrooms out of his tom yum soup and putting them in my bowl. It is sad that he doesn’t appreciate mushrooms, but on the other hand, MOAR mushrooms for me…
Sunday dinner this week we kept simple — we had some leftover pasta from the day before, so we just added steak and broccoli. About 20-25 minutes of cooking time, and the kids (mostly Kavi) did almost all of it, with instruction / supervision.
First we got the water boiling for the broccoli, which we were going to boil this time. (Sometimes we steam it, sometimes we roast it. Broccoli happens a lot around here, as it’s the only green vegetable both kids will reliably eat.) The pot was heavy enough that Kavi had a little trouble moving it over — got to get that girl doing more household and yard work, build up some arm muscles! She plays soccer, but that is not helping her arms any.
Kavi really loves steak, so she was pretty excited to learn how easy it was to make for herself. Rinse, pat dry with paper towels, season with salt and pepper (the kids love using the grinders), add a bit of oil. Get the grill pan really hot (toss some water on to make sure it’s sizzling, which is always fun). Put steak on pan and set timer for 3-4 minutes (depending on how thick your steak is; we were doing NY strip, so went with 4).
Check on the water for the broccoli — boiling yet? Almost. We’d already cut it up a few days before (leftover for serving with dip at a party), so that bit was taken care of. We put some dishes away, clearing the dishwasher for later use.
Okay, water at a full rolling boil, plenty of bubbles, in goes the broccoli, careful not to splash yourself with boiling water.
There goes the timer for the steaks — flip them! Don’t mess with them otherwise! Set another timer for 3 minutes. I showed Kavi how you can press a finger into the pad at the base of your thumb to remind yourself of the right level of squishiness for steak doneness — medium rare is what we all like. We pressed a finger in the steak to test — still too soft. Empty some more dishes from the dishwasher.
We were a little tight on time here, because broccoli and steak were finishing at about the same time — the broccoli got *slightly* overcooked as a result. Not enough to be mushy though, which was good, because the kids won’t eat it then! It’s hard to manage the timings perfectly when you’re also trying to teach two kids.
Timer goes off, steak on the cutting board, add a bit more salt and pepper, leave it to rest. (Important — if you cut it now, the juices will just flow out; messy, and less tasty steak resulting).
Drain the broccoli. This bit, I did for them, because the pot was borderline too heavy for Kavi to lift. I told her she could just take them out with a spatula instead; if I’d had one nearby, I would’ve had her do that, but I didn’t — poor planning on my part! Next time. I also warned them to be careful with the steam when pouring out the broccoli into the colander — you can burn your face or hands pretty easily. No good.
Broccoli back in the pot, and now Anand and Kevin have finished the dishwasher, heated up the leftover pasta, and are off setting the table and lighting the candles while we finish up. Kavi adds several pats of butter to the broccoli and gently stirs; we could’ve added some salt too, but with salted butter, didn’t feel we needed it. The sweetness of the broccoli was coming through nicely.
Then slicing the steak, making it pretty with a few of Daddy’s favorite kumato tomatoes, and off to eat.
It was very satisfying teaching her how to do this at age 12. I basically didn’t learn to cook ’til college; I feel like they’re getting a big advantange in life here! Happy parenting.
Valentine’s present for Kev and the kids: 30 minutes with fresh strawberries, dried apples, pears, mangos, crystallized ginger, and four kinds of chocolate.
*****
Same as previous, plus 30 minutes more, drizzled chocolate, powdered dehydrated raspberries, and fresh raspberries stuffed with white chocolate chips. Everything but the ruby chocolate (which I get on Amazon in a big bag) picked up this afternoon at Target.
Sunday dinner was Kavi’s turn, and she picked sushi, which is sort of a funny choice, given that the only sushi she has historically been willing to even try are California rolls. But okay. Kevin doesn’t eat fish, Anand wasn’t sure he wanted to even try sushi, so this was going to be interesting.
But it actually turned out okay, in large part because I got my groceries at H Mart, which is I think mostly Korean with a good supply of Japanese. They had everything I needed in easy packaging, including some already marinated beef, which Kevin could grill for us, and which I was pretty sure would be a reliable way to feed Anand. (They also had both American cucumber and Korean cucumber — the latter is lovely, with a delicate, sweet flavor.)
The kids were startled by the intense scent of the seasoned rice vinegar hitting the rice — we almost lost them then.
But they had a blast deciding what they wanted to put on their sushi, and rolling it up. Whew. Anand went for the sweet omelette, grilled meat, and bell pepper. Kavi was indignant that they’d made eggs sweet — she was not expecting that. She didn’t even try for a California roll, in the end, going for beef, bell pepper, and avocado. Kevin did cucumber and avocado, and I indulged myself with salmon, avocado, cucumber, and tobiko.
The kids did not try the wasabi, soy sauce, or pickled ginger. We’re going to have to ease them into other cuisines, clearly.
The kids loved getting to be artistic with their food. Anand hit upon the idea of using tobiko (which he had no intention of eating) to decorate his plate, and Kavi was envious that he’d managed to coordinate the tobiko, the bell pepper, and his orange shirt.
(I ended up eating his tobiko. No food waste in this house!)
Overall, the kids probably liked the flavors of this the least of the 6 family dinners we’ve done so far this year (Daddy’s baked chicken wrapped in cheese and prosciutto is the standout hit so far), but they did eat enough to count as a meal, which was good. And they want to do it again, which is great — a lot of this is simple unfamiliarity. If we keep having food from other cuisines, their palates should get more accustomed.
Fingers crossed, anyway. I *love* sashimi, so the more I can get them headed in that direction, the happier I’ll be. I was in my 20s the first time I had sushi, and the guy I was dating had to coax me in with California rolls because I was intimidated by the raw fish concept. How things have changed!
(We don’t usually have phones at the table for family dinner, but in this photo, Kavi is photographing her food for her Instagram feed. Like mother, like daughter…)
Quick question (primarily for vegetarians / vegans).
Some of you may remember that I did two little mini cookbooks before Feast, The Marshmallows of Serendib and Vegan Serendib. I thought to keep the price point low on those e-books, so they’re more samplers — marshmallows is just 13 recipes, and vegan is 41 recipes. The vegan one is priced at $5.99 currently. (Marshmallows is $2.99).
I was thinking about it more, and I keep feeling like heck, at least half of Feast is already vegan (as is much Sri Lankan cuisine by nature, esp. since we use coconut milk instead of cow milk). Maybe I should just do another edition of that book, and put ALL the vegan recipes from Feast in there?
I’d already been thinking about doing this for a while, and then last night I just read an article about the vegan race wars in Nosrat’s Best American Food Writing 2019: “The Vegan Race Wars: How the Mainstream Ignores Vegans of Color” (Khusbhu Shah). (Recommended, fairly short: https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/vegan-race-wars-white-veganism) Which emphasized to me that it’d be good to have more visible representation in America of vegan cuisine from other parts of the world.
But if I do put ALL the vegan recipes from Feast in this vegan e-book, it does undercut the main book sales. (As a reminder, I have 2000 hardcover print copies sitting in a warehouse right now. Eep.) To avoid that, I should probably raise the price to something closer to the ebook price for Feast? (Mascot Books — I don’t see a pre-order page for Feast ebook on Amazon — am I missing it? Jed, do you know?)
WHAT’S THE ACTUAL QUESTION, MARY ANNE?
I guess this is a question mostly for vegans (I’m not sure whom I know who is vegan, aside from Swati?) and maybe vegetarians:
Would you be interested in buying a 100+ recipe vegan version of Feast of Serendib, at something like $9.99 for the ebook? With a possible print edition to follow eventually, if there’s interest and I have time? (Really, more if Stephanie Bailey and Heather Rainwater Campbell have time, as I suspect much of the production work would fall to them.)
Or should I just stop thinking about this and just leave the little vegan sampler up there as is? (We’re going to have our Feast cover designer Jeremy John Parker change the cover regardless, to make it look more like the Feast cover and less like something I hacked together on Canva, so I have to upload a new edition anyway, which is another part of why I’m thinking about all this.)
Small version already up: 
https://smile.amazon.com/Vegan-Serendib-Small-Lankan-Cookbook-ebook/dp/B07GRDVTX3
Mango chocolates — I took dehydrated mango and crushed it in the food processor (thanks for the tip, Pooja Makhijani!), then stirred that into melted dark chocolate. Tasted it, good, but could use more punch — I added some amchur, Indian dried green mango powder. That brought nice tang to it, excellent choice. Still could use more mango (MOAR MANGO), so chopped up some dried mango and stirred that in too. Now we’re cooking! Mango-y goodness.
From that point it was was just pouring the chocolate into the pretty molds, and we could’ve stopped there and been happy. But why stop there? We decided to gild the lily and add a bit of edible gilt to the tops. I also did some in the half-round molds and drizzled white chocolate over those. Just ’cause. Making confections really is like playing sometimes.
The final texture was interesting — a bit of crunch from the larger pieces of dehydrated mango, along with the chew from the dried mango. I really liked how these came out, and they’re also Kavi-approved. I’m afraid I didn’t write down measurements this time, so I can’t give you a proper recipe — sorry! I will if I make them again.
Anand does say he likes fresh mango better; he’s the fruit addict in our household, even though he also loves sweets. You should see him go through a fruit bowl — it’s a thing of beauty. I probably agree with him, actually, but fresh, ripe mango is not always available in wintery Chicago, alas.
These mango chocolates are a pleasant though totally different thing.