The point of all of this, inadequately worded, some book recommendations, and the glories of Carne...

(Seriously, I need to start including graphics ... at 2:45 a.m., though, I'm just going to post it sans pretty pictures and worry about it later. And this is really an incredibly long post, so for anyone that actually reads the whole thing, I am in your debt.)

I did not, fortunately, have guests for dinner last Thursday evening. Fortunately, because I was exhausted from 6 finals this week.

Fortunately, because a lot of my originally envisioned guests couldn’t make it for one reason or another and the ever-diminishing guest list began to teeter dangerously close to that edge dividing a nice group of folks who don’t feel particularly compelled to speak if they don’t want to (as someone else probably will) from a group that is small enough to suddenly feel like a family dinner where everyone’s under the spotlight. Certainly if everyone knows each other already and has plenty to share, this isn’t an issue... but as much as I’d love to have a circle of friends like that, I don’t. But getting a group together who all may not know each other but *should* is sort of the point of hosting things like this, yes?

And fortunately, because I simply couldn’t see myself enjoying organizing and cleaning the house, cooking for a few hours, and entertaining until the late evening. Probably would’ve been ugly...

As it stands at the moment, this fabled Indian dinner will take place some time between Christmas and New Year’s. I think I’m going to stop worrying about getting everyone on board, set a date, invite a bunch of people, and see who shows up. Considering most of my friends have some combination of jobs with weird hours and children, this might in fact be the best route in all cases.

A follower of my blog (thanks to everyone already reading it ... all two entries of it) mentioned that the thing they hate the most about most blogs is that they end up becoming a little too focused on self (“navel-gazing”, in her words). The difficulty with this is that people only have their own point-of-view to really reference, and so all blogs inevitably end up being centered around what is important to the author.

So, is what’s important to the author passing the “bus test” (credit: Jared, fiction writer and winner of Creepfest ’08 ...) and causing us to care if the subject crosses the road and gets hit by a bus in the blog entry’s next sentence?

I truly do believe that if written properly, what affects self ends up being impactful on others, and I think the only blogs that spin out of control completely are those that seek only to report daily minutiae in the blogger’s life. Few of those out there any more, although I certainly don’t go looking for them.

With this long-winded introduction (which probably violates most of its own assertions :-P) in mind, I think it’s worthwhile to explain at this point my rationale for starting this project.

The focus is on food, but food of a sort many people don’t ever explore, and food in ways that hopefully puts it into a larger context. First, a story of how I came from a typical young bachelor’s diet of fast food and frozen dinners to where I’m at now, with a pantry stuffed to the gills with ingredients few people have ever used and a fridge/freezer threatening to explode at a moment’s notice (I know now why my parents have three of ‘em).

When I was working at DirecTV as a customer service representative in my early- to mid-‘20s, there was a Burger King conveniently located 3 minutes away from work, and for around 2 years, that was my regular spot for lunch. To shake things up, maybe an adventurous trip to Jack-in-the-Box or Taco Bell. Woo! And while that stuff will keep you alive and often hits you in that primal salt/sugar/fat center of satiety, 30 pounds later and way too much money sent the way of fast food executives convinced me, finally, that the reason I felt like s*** wasn’t only because I didn’t particularly love my job and probably needed to find my way to a gym more often.

If you’ve ever seen Morgan Spurlock’s entertaining film “Super Size Me”, that was basically me. All of it.

As I realized that this sort of daily diet wasn’t doing me much good and began to shift toward making my own food, I realized just how quickly those half-a-dozen extra love handles drop off when you stop sucking down double Whoppers and gargantuan Cokes every day.

At the time, I was living in a studio apartment with a hilarious joke of a kitchen, and with bizarre work hours and a general lack of enthusiasm with life, my dinners were quick, convenient, and uninspired. Lots of packaged frozen stuff. Hardly any “real” cooking. But at least I was stepping away from the fast food.

Eventually, I moved away from the hovel and into a place with a much larger kitchen, adult-size refrigerator, and (*gasp*) a dishwasher. My mother’s words were prophetic in that the big boy kitchen would become the best part about my new place. Bah, I said! Big deal! Look at all the extra space!

Always heed your mother’s words. Depending on your mother.

My job situation changed, and I made it back to school to finish my degree (the path to this is a boring story not worth repeating). I cooked a good percentage of the time, but didn’t really find a passion with a particular type of cuisine until I discovered Indian food.

I started with this cookbook with little in the way of real instruction for the uninitiated but reasonably straight-forward recipes, and eventually worked up the courage to explore the volume, discovering in the process that it wasn’t as daunting as it first seemed.

One of the biggest hurdles was finding a good ingredient supplier (esp. in the realm of spices, because you do NOT want to buy spices at a supermarket), but once you’re set up with the 20 or so lasts-forever-in-pantry ingredients, the magic with Indian is with a minimal of fresh ingredients you can make just about anything your little heart desires.

If you’re interested in the cuisine already, I recommend a trio of books. Check your public library for them as they are pretty popular. This set will, in my view, give you more than enough variety and guidance to make just about anything from the Indian subcontinent...

660 Curries: I heard an interview with Raghavan Iyer, who is a chef, writer of cookbooks, and, most importantly, award-winning teacher of Indian cookery. His book is the definition of an inspiring text which makes you want to try everything once. Terrific supplements to the main point of the book, including some guidance on developing your own spice blends, a guide to take with you to Indian grocery stores to translate from Hindi to English, and plenty of guidance on how to use ingredients independent of their particular recipes. This is my go-to book at the moment.

1,000 Indian Recipes: Neelam Batra’s massive tome includes scads of chutneys, pickles, breads, drinks and desserts ... categories that are a not a bit weak in Iyer’s text. It would not be a very good volume to use if it was your only resource, but with the Internet it’d be doable. But I’d recommend Iyer’s first and this as a terrific companion.

Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors: This is a terrific book for learning about the history that led to what is considered Indian food today. It’s an incredibly readable volume and packed with interesting stuff, including the discussion of the British introducing tea to India, to the British introducing Indian cooks to frightened British palates, to the British introducing the concept of “curry” as an all-encompassing term which, to ... well, you see the pattern. To be fair, the British were far from the only influences on the cuisine we know as Indian food. They just left last. Anyway, it’s a great read.

The point of all of this is that the reason I got into cooking, and cooking stuff that I never had growing up and see poorly represented in the “average American diet” is that I decided at one point I was tired of shoveling soulless food into my mouth simply to subsist. And as I got more comfortable in the kitchen and started taking chances, I found that not only was it worthwhile for my own purposes, it gave me an outlet for building relationships with other people in my life.

***

Now, on a completely different note, here’s my two-minute explanation on something which I used to make just about every week until I burnt myself out on it.

Carne Asada!!! (mmmmmm)

As I’ve read from fairly unreliable sources on the Intertubes, the concept that it’s marinated steak combined with a garnish pile of cilantro, avocado sauce, pico de gallo, and lime juice is mostly an American concept. Hard to argue with that combination, though ;-). The best starting point recipe-wise in my worthless opinion is this page, which is what I based my general process on. Carne’s a great way to make a whole bunch of food at the start of a busy week and always have something ready to go...

I usually go to the store and buy the cheapest roast I can find, even though most recipes will call for skirt, hanger, or flank steak. But at around 6 bucks a pound for flank and s little bit less for the others, if you can find that 7 pound $1.50/lb. bottom round, you’ll still end up with something really lean, really economical, and still really tender by the end. Tends to be more satisfying as well, even though logic would dictate that its lack of fat is a drawback.

Grab a gallon plastic bag and pour in a combination of olive oil, lime juice, chopped cilantro, chopped serrano or jalapeno peppers, minced garlic, ground cumin, a little vinegar ... okay, basically the marinade at this link. Feel free to make adjustments, of course. Slice the roast into 1/4 inch or so strips of any length that you can manage on your outdoor grill/cast iron grill pan/George Foreman grill and add those to the bag. Zip and shake it around to coat the meat, then place it in the fridge for at least an hour (after about 3 hours I’ve found that the meat tends to start breaking down from all the powerful industrial acid you’ve added).

Once you’re reading to cook, heat up your grilling surface, shake your meat slices of extra marinade, and cook away - I like to leave them a bit pink on the inside, but this isn’t an exact science and doesn’t matter that much. They usually only take a couple minutes on each side if it’s sliced thin. Salt and pepper each side as you cook each batch, and set in a large platter of some kind with aluminum foil over the top to keep them warm.

Serve inside corn tortillas (best friend a bit in olive oil if they’re store-bought...) with whatever you feel like. Cheddar, cotija, more lime, avocados, salsa, more cilantro, grilled onions (do ‘em at the same time as your steak!), with rice and beans on the side. Or not.

This stuff keeps really well, and I usually just reheat the steak slices in a non-stick...

This entry exploded into something way longer than I’d originally planned. Shorter entries will be the pattern in the near future. I think a series on spices is in order...

As always, feedback is more than welcome.