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Food

December 05, 2022

India’s Food Lore and Love

December 05, 2022/ Naomi Johnson

a roommate, a movie, and an amazing aroma

India is a country bursting with flavours and food lore, and nowhere is this more evidenced than in their daily meal-making rituals. No mere meal-prep time – throw it together quickly so you can move on to other more important things – the process is the important thing. Food preparation is a sacred craft providing ample opportunity to connect with art and with love.

While the ingredients may not vary much – rice or roti (their bread), veggies and meat (if not vegetarian), oil and spices – the variations are endless. And the rules of engagement? Always the same: this is love and this is art.

The Hundred-Foot Journey - movie trailer

I can attest to this firsthand having lived with east-Indian roomies for three years now. Take Harish, for example. He’s learning to prepare some of his homeland’s dishes while distanced from family and the food stalls of his country. Recently, he mastered the curry sauce. You’ll get a notion of the art involved in a minute. But hey, why not witness this in a movie with a great story?

In The Hundred-Foot Journey viewers meet a close, financially strapped east-Indian family who have relocated to France. They’ll open their restaurant in a dilapidated run-down building right across from a Michelin-starred, world-class restaurant. Love – and war – results.

No food wars at Harish’s end though. Here’s how he built his curry base. He started by gathering all the ingredients needed for preparing the three-step sauce:

1. oil, cinnamon stick, green cardamom pods, cloves, bay leaves, cumin seeds, white onions, fresh garlic and ginger, salt, loads of fresh tomatoes 2. cashews, white melon seeds, hot water 3. more oil, turmeric, red chili, coriander, cumin and garam masala powders

Step 1 Curry Sauce Base

These ingredients make the “onion-tomato” base. He prepared that this way:

heat ½ cup oil and add 1-inch cinnamon, 1 tsp cardamom pods, 1 tsp cloves, 2 bay leaves and 1 tsp cumin seeds
sauté on medium-low heat until it turns aromatic
add 500 grams sliced onion, 30 grams garlic, 30 grams ginger, 1 tsp salt and sauté well
add 1 kg of slice tomatoes, cover, and cook for 15 minutes or until soft and mushy
cool, then transfer to a blender and blend to a smooth paste

He put this aside and then moved on.

Step 2

combine ¼ cup cashew nuts, ¼ cup melon seeds, and ½ cup hot water, placing together in a bowl
soak for 15 minutes

He then blended these into a smooth white paste and set this aside, too. Now, for his final steps.

Step 3

heat ¼ cup oil and added 1 tsp turmeric, 3 tbsp red chili powder, 3 tbsp coriander powder, 1 tsp cumin powder, and 1 tsp garam masala
sauté on medium-high heat until the spices turn aromatic

These heated spices gave off a wonderful aroma. I can attest to the wonderful smells that often fill our house! Now that all the steps of his curry base were completed, it was time to combine the mixtures together.

Combining Steps 1-3

add the “onion tomato,” sauce to the frying pan spice mixture and stir
cover and cook on medium-high heat for 20 minutes, until you can see the oil separating at the edges of the sauce while stirring occasionally to prevent burning
stir in the white cashew-melon paste and cook well until the mixture, once again, shows the oil beginning to separate from the sauce at the pan’s edges

Harish’s curry base didn’t last long! Enjoyed daily with rice, and various entrée variations made (see below), delectable aromas filled our home or his work’s kitchen every day. His coworkers were jealous of the wonderful smells that lingered after his lunch breaks.

Throughout this detailed process, you’ve perhaps gained a feel for all the love invested in east-Indian food preparation. But go watch that movie – if I haven’t convinced you, it will!

L to R Variations: 1. Mixed Veg 2. peas and paneer 3. cashew and peppers — L to R Variations from sauce base: mixed veg, peas & paneer, peppers & cashews

Naomi J loves it when food, family, and friends come together. And all the moreso when faith is added into the mix. Faith in the Big Guy upstairs who designed and planned all those great things in the first place. Gotta’ love him! (And she does).

November 15, 2022

Delicious Foods & Dark Moods

November 15, 2022/ Naomi Johnson

a fabulous tabouli, home-cooking to combat depression, and more surprises

Maybe you’ve tried the famed mid-east’s tabouli from either your supermarket or your fave fast-food eastern take-out. In both cases, you’ve been cheated. Your taste buds deserve to experience the real thing prepared right. That includes knowing its secret ingredients and leaving out any detracting additions.

So, here’s a tabouli recipe to die for—but don’t, please! After you’ve tasted this one, you’ll definitely want to keep living and eating great made-at-home foods that hold no comparison to super-market or food chain variations. I promise.

And seriously, if dying is something you long for, (hey, depression: we’ve all been there at one time or another) I realize eating great food won’t fix that. But sometimes placing our minds on something creative brings its own rewards and helps centre us. And who knows, when you find that one creative hobby that works for you? It can do wonders in keeping you ahead of those black clouds—beyond their reach. Eventually, you’ll outrun them and crush them. I promise that, too. You will.

Try this recipe if you’re a salad lover, or even if salads are just “meh” for you. This one won’t be. After you’ve read it through we’ll catch up at the end with some final thoughts on creativity, cooking, and those dogged, dark thoughts.

follow these steps for the basic salad preparation

now for the incredible dressing that makes the salad come alive

Now you’re ready to bring out the prepared salad from the fridge. Remove as much as needed for your meal and any others joining in. Stir in enough dressing to make the mixture juicy. Eat with very fresh pita bread. In fact, this salad does great wrapped in a single-side of thin pita.

Made right, this salad is very addictive. Don’t leave out the mint or the cinnamon! They provide the magic flavour touches. Don’t add any extra ingredients (nuts, feta, olives, pomegranate seeds etc). Let your tastebuds get used to this real treasure before you branch out and add other things to it. Then, at least you know what you’re comparing it to. Do make often! Do find the freshest and best quality ingredients you possibly can. Your taste buds will thank you.

So, did great “at home” cooking dissolve or deal with my depression when it visited my life? Honestly, that wasn’t the creative hobby that kept my head above water at that time. My faith did that. That and availing myself of some great church contacts. Who’d have thought, eh? But another family member found music pursuits gave meaning and colour to her life when she badly needed those. And later on, fabulous home-cooking did become her delight and also something of her ongoing therapeutic practice, too. She often shares her home-cooked meals with others now, multiplying the satisfaction and love instead of keeping it all to herself. That’s another benefit of learning to prepare even a few tasty items from scratch: you can bless others.

You may not be up to hosting others at this time if you’re suffering from dark days, but one day you will. And others will delight in your culinary accomplishments and benefit from your patient work at creating tasty outcomes.

That reminds me: I once shared a fabulous, love-designed meal with someone who actually broke down and cried – a full-grown adult, crying – because of the out-of-the-way kindness his host showered on him. She had designed a well-thought-out meal, beautifully cooked and prepared it, and then all fancy-like presented it. It was like eating in a five-star restaurant without getting a big bill at the end. And it was just what this guest needed at a time when others didn’t realize the tough times he was facing. Long, hard, dark-mood times.

So, never underestimate the power of a great meal, kindly shared. And a small word of advice if I may? If you haven’t tried church as depression therapy, give it a try. You might be surprised at what you discover. The above host and her overwhelmed guest? That happened because of a church connection.

October 17, 2022

Recipe Mashups

October 17, 2022/ Naomi Johnson

Food mashups and favorite recipe hybrids have likely been around since we figured out how to put food in our mouths. And it‘s hard to resist putting our own twist on things, experimenting, or getting creative with day-old leftovers.

Fortunately, with the advent of the internet, Instagram, and more, we can hear of others’ concoctions more rapidly and see them more effortlessly than ever. And what has this led to? A lot of fun, zaniness, and heck, great food inspiration.

Meet the Taco Mashup

Take the famous Mexican taco, for instance. You start with ground meat, chopped lettuce, grated cheese, onions, and seasoning all stuffed into a crunchy taco shell—yum! But let’s mash this up and do something different with it. Here’s our version—the Fruitified Meat Taco presented with additional color and taste. You’ll need:

2 chopped white onions and oil to sauté; go ahead, chop and sauté
500 g ground meat of your choice—we suggest turkey, beef, or chicken; add to limp onions; cook until browned
Taco Seasoning Mix—1 envelope or 50 mL plus 150 mL of water; mix water and spices then add to meat and onions and cook until extra liquid evaporates
Now for the mashup
grab a crunchy green or red-skinned apple—or both; get rid of the core and chop into tablespoon-sized chunks leaving the skin on

Next, add a dash of color

120 mL of frozen sweet or baby green peas
If your nose scrunches at the sound of peas, so does ours. But sweet baby peas are mild—we promise. Run them under cold water and let them sit on the counter for a few minutes. You’ll add them only in the last minutes of cooking along with the fresh apple chunks. This way they’ll both keep their texture and their color. Let the peas and apples heat until just warmed through but not well cooked. Your mother will be so proud of you—eating your peas.

Test your mashup awareness

Now you’re ready to grab those taco shells, tortillas, or fajitas, according to your preference, and fill them up. Garnish with lettuce, tomato, grated cheese, and enjoy!

How about testing your mashup awareness while enjoying your delicious Fruitified Tacos? There’re some great zany mashups out there. You can test your FQ, foodie quotient, while you’re at it.

Win our FQ “foodie quotient” Award

If you know these answers without checking the internet you have an outstanding FQ and you’re entitled to Foragers of Cuisine’s “FQ of Distinction” award. And if no one else knows what that means it’ll be because you hold the world’s premier awarding of it. And to think it happened right here at Spine Online.

name 3 Heinz mashup sauces that begin with either the letter M or H
name 3 Pepsi mashup fruit flavors introduced in the last few years
name the famous mashup burger that originated in NYC
the inventor of the famous mashup burger is second-generation _____ what nationality?

If you can answer the last question without peeking, you’re an FQ brainchild. Want to know if you’ve won the award? Check your answers below. If you’ve got a perfect score, the award is yours. Consider it done!