Goan Curry (Again)

Third time in what, a fortnight (don't you love that word?) I've done the supposedly Goan curry thing.

The recipe that intrigued me has now been made with the shrimp called for in the recipe I went by, tempeh, and now tofu. With and without fenugreek, with varying amounts of cayenne, dried chillies, lemon or lime juice, etc.



I've learned a lot. How to measure my ingredients in advance so I don't scorch stuff measuring the next ingredient. Not to double the citrus or cayenne if I want to taste everything. That curry leaves are harder to buy than pot, that there are a lot of Indians (red dot, not feather) living in Johnson County.



I've learned, for that matter, that curry is a leaf and not just a blend of spices. And that 'Goan' is 'Go-an' as in of Goa, not 'Goan' as in rhymes with 'tone.'



Goa is a part of India. Not very big, and for some reason I have the impression it's related to Bollywood the way Brentwood is to Hollywood.



Anyway, I used fenugreek this time in addition to curry leaves. First time I made this, I couldn't get curry leaves and used the fenugreek as a substitute. I used half as much this time and otherwise took things back to the original recipe (I'd upped the chillies, cayenne and citrus last time, with out-of-balance results).



This was to take to a birthday party for a friend's kiddo's second birthday. Well, I was going to make this for just me, then realized it would be the perfect thing to take and share with my friends. I love to cook, so why not? Half (maybe not half—but a sizable fraction) of what I want in a girlfriend is a chick I can cook dinner for.



And this kid, turning two, is he cute or what? He's almost as cute as I was at his age.









The curry wasn't the whole dinner offering: there were drumsticks, dawgs & burgers grilled by the host. Mo was personally responsible for six drumsticks, true story.



And, as usual, Mo as also responsible for dragging every little toy out of the toy drawers.



In case you want the recipe without all this shuck & jive:

Goan-Style Curried Tofu
for the marinade:
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
14 oz. drained extra-firm tofu, cubed
Combine the marinade ingredients with tofu and toss to coat; stick in the fridge while you make the sauce.

for the sauce
1/4 cup peanut oil
24 fresh curry leaves
1 teaspoon dried fenugreek
4 dried red chillies
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
3" piece of fresh ginger, peeled & minced
1 medium onion minced
5 cloves garlic, peeled & chopped
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 28 oz can petite diced tomatoes, undrained
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon Sambar Masala
1 14 oz can coconut milk
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Heat the oil with the fenugreek, curry leaves and peppers 1 to 2 minutes; add the black pepper and cook for 1 minute more. Add the ginger, onion and salt, stirring often as it cooks another 8 minutes (until the onion is translucent and turning brown, adding a quarter cup of water to prevent sticking. Add the coriander, garlic, turmeric and cook another minute before adding the tomatoes. Simmer 5 minutes then stir in the Sambar and coconut milk. When this starts to simmer, add the tofu with residual marinade and simmer 2 minutes longer. Stir in cilantro and serve over steamed basmati rice.

Normally I'd top this post with the hero shot of the finished dish, plated and ready to eat. But alas, I thought I'd snapped a shot of the dish at the party, and packed up the leftovers when I got home — ate them for lunch today, and what a lunch it was. So I'll have to make this again, for the camera. Which I'm sure you'll understand, is a real hardship.

Rocket Lobsters Strike Again

Mo wanted to go to Kaleidoscope, but really, it was 69º and we needed some fresh air.


Rocket Lobsters February 7 from Chixulub on Vimeo.

I put the kites in the car thinking it'd be windy again (Friday had been gusty), but when we got to the park, all the kite flyers were frustrated by the total lack of sustained breezes.



Which was no hardship for me and Mo, we also had the range box and the pitiful remains of Lobster Fleet's flying stock (many repairs to do this spring).



This cute little boy was so fascinated with the rockets, and then I got to talking to his Dad who turned out to be a Russian aerospace engineer, though not one who works on rockets. He was very knowledgeable on the subject of rockets, but apparently his career has been more with airplanes.



I talked up the Kansas Cosmosphere, told him that you'd have to hit the Smithsonian to beat it and with his son's obvious enthusiasm for the subject it'd be a home run.



And we had fun talking about the Cold War, the War on Terror, China's human rights record and how Russia is really run by the same people today, they just don't call it Communism anymore.



At some point, his kid asked me if I was going to launch another, and I allowed that I might if I ever shut up and prepped another one.



Then Mo needed the restroom, and the ones at the park aren't open yet (I'm sure there are good reasons to close them 'for the season,' but it sure does suck when you have to go driving to find a john).





So then we went to Celebration Park in Gardner which is a nearly perfect launch site. Mo did her sidewalk chalk and I launched a couple. It was getting too dark to launch, really, but it's such an open area it's practically impossible to lose a rocket. No mature trees to speak of, and only one smallish water hazard. You could strand it on the roof of one of the small buildings, and could wind up having to clime a fence around a softball field, but other than that it's perfect. Borders on Molly's school, which also has few rocket-eating components and a sod farm.

Kadhi Pakora & Avial

These were a couple of heat & eat instant meals I found at Ambica. I decided it would be a good way to sample, two bucks a pop, and then I could research recipes.



Avial turns out to be a cumin-oriented veggie hash of sorts. I'm not looking up a recipe for this one. It's edible, but not thrilling.



The other, Kadhi Pakora, which is some sort of graham flour dumpling in a curry-ish sauce, was pretty good. I don't know if I want to make it from scratch, get a big batch of it, though. Next time I'm there for curry leaves and such, I'll try a couple more. There were only about 300 choices, stuff from every region of India.



Which, if Belgium is the Disney Land of interesting beers, India seems to be the Disney World of culinary variety. I'm glad we have a large immigrant community here, because there are quite a few really well-stocked Indian markets I've found, and it ain't foodies like me keeping them in business. The evening I stopped at Ambica, I was the only caucasian in the joint.

I Cast a Spell! (Talk About Mad Props)

This is the skit where I got the phrase 'I cast a spell,' which became a euphemism for farting in my family. When someone has bad gas, they are a 'wizard,' as in 'Mo's been a real wizard today, I thought she'd crapped her pants a couple of times.'



Anyway, that's not what this is about. Em is in a play at school, and she was looking for a big book to use as a prop.

Then she talked about how she needed to make a book cover for it so it would look like a book of spells. I'm like, well, I can offer the services of a professional graphic designer...



So with Em's help (she was truly the Art Director, vetoing my use of the 'æ' grapheme in the word 'faerie.' She wanted the pink, too.

The Uninitiated

I went to The Uninvited on the way home from work tonight. It's a formula thriller, but a good one. It won't win any Oscars, but it was diverting.

It also gave me an idea for my next failed attempt at writing a novel. I had a notion, which I am still mulling around, and this gave me another notion for a decent twist.

Don't wait under water, I still haven't even come up with characters, it's more a scenario than anything at this point. And last time I started to write a book I ended up with almost 200,000 words of pure drivel I can't even imagine salvaging through rewrites.

Maybe it's the price you pay for going to a teenie film, and this is definitely that, but the giggling girls in the row in front of me and behind me were a distraction. They weren't totally obnoxious, but they were definitely too young to sit still for a whole movie.

The Proverbial Throwing of the Fat on the Proverbial Fire

Is there a law against using the word 'proverbial' twice in a headline?  Probably ought to be.


Throwing the Fat on the Fire from Chixulub on Vimeo.

All of this was preparatory to me grilling salmon in hopes of cooking a dinner that might undo a modicum of breakfast's damage.



I squirted the juice of a lemon on the salmon and sprinkled it with freshly ground pepper and some sea salt before grilling in foil (this was a skinless filet, so foil was the only way to do it; when I get it on the skin I grill it nekkid). Emily said, more or less, 'No! It ruins it! Stupid Hobbitses!'

Okay, actually it wasn't more or less, that was an exact quote.



I told her if she'd eat it this time, I'd never contaminate the salmon with lemon again. I hoped that she'd acquire a taste for it this way, but no such luck.

Credit Where It's Due

I try to be fair. You know I have almost no use for W., but I'll give him props for his Supreme Court picks, as an example. Or a modest cut in taxes that should be abolished.

I still think he was one of the most un-fit leaders I've ever seen, but he had his moments. Like the Polish Interceptor deal as a way of brushing Putkin back from the plate: and Russia's dubious leaders are going to crowd the strike zone every chance they get.

Obama's plans are at least as dubious as Russia's leaders, but he does have some leadership qualities I admire.

Now get it straight: Tom Daschle is totally unqualified by virtue of bad ideas and worse ethics to hold any public office. It's a shame he was ever a Senator, and it's ridiculous to think of giving him a Cabinet position.

But if he'd paid his taxes, he would be confirmed as would Killefer. They might be craptastic choices on merit, but merit doesn't enter into the picture with these sorts of patronage positions.

Wait, I know you think I'm trashing Obama, and I'm not. This is all about giving him kudos.

There is a fundamental difference between saying 'I screwed up' and 'mistakes were made.' Yes, Obama appointed two secretaries who had to bow out for crap that should have been caught in the pre-appointment vetting process. And bad cabinet appointments might suck but they don't suck nearly as hard as invading a country under false pretenses or based on faulty intelligence (take your pick).

In any case, terrible 'stimulus' package,* bad tax ideas, etc., aside, it's good to have a leader who will say, straight up, that he screwed the pooch.

*Dude, all the money for this package is money the government has to borrow by issuing Treasuries. Which means every dollar spent is a dollar stolen from the private sector where it might do some good.

Chicken Nuggets & Stuff

Mo wanted chicken nuggets for dinner which is no news flash. Sometimes I think she wants to live on a strict Chicken Nugget Diet.



And in any case, we needed something fairly quick, a school night and I was running late picking my honyocks up to begin with.



So the nuggets were supplemented with baked potato and steamed asparagus. Had good luckthis time putting a bit of water in my stock pot, getting it boiling, and dropping in the colander full of asparagus, then lidding it. The lid doesn't quite fit the colander, so some steam can escape, but after eight minutes, the asparagus was cooked but not mushy.

Limonade

This time I used my blender instead of my cocktail shaker.



Juice of 1 lime
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup ice cubes



Blend with ice cubes until it's a thick slush, divide evenly between two pint sleeves, top up with club soda, give a quick stir and serve. Em's gets a dribble of Grenadine.

Goan-Style Curried Tempeh

The evil herb was put to use in basically the same recipe I made the other day, but with tempeh in place of shrimp and a couple other minor tweaks. Slightly more citrus juice, about three tablespoons, freshly squeezed lime juice this time.



I also used a touch more cayenne pepper, 1/2 teaspoon instead of 1/4 in the marinade. Six dried chillies instead of four (they were small, but this was a more intense curry. It was borderline on a mistake to up both the dried chillies by two and double the cayenne). Oh, and I used five large-ish cloves of garlic, quite a bit more than the recipe calls for.



I think it was a bigger piece of ginger this time, but a 'three inch piece' is such a vague measurement with a root that varied.



A final substitution was peanut oil instead of canola. I doubt it makes a difference you can taste, as delicious as peanut oil can be, there's so many intense herbal flavors going on in this dish a subtlety of the oil is not going to translate.

I wonder about adding a bit of sesame oil at the finish, but maybe it'd get lost in all these intense aromatics.



The curry leaves have a distinctive odor, and I can't really liken it to much of anything else. It might be vaguely citrus, but maybe vaguely resinous and piney, too. They look like bay leaves, but it's a different flavor and aroma altogether.



I did learn my lesson about lining up my seasonings in advance. All ingredients prepped, measured into shot glasses and whatnot before I even put heat to the oil.



Anyway, as I say, an intense dish but still delicious. The heat wasn't so overwhelming once the sauce soaked into the basmati rice and all that.

Limeades

While I was cooking up another diabolical curry, this time with actual curry leaves procured from what I now think of as my dealer, I got a notion.

I had citrus on hand because I needed it for the marinade, and because Mo likes to eat the rinds off citrus fruit. On rare occasions she'll eat the fruit, but mainly she wants the peel of the orange, the lemon, the 'green lemon' (her nickname for limes).



The first limeade I attempted was a failure. The sugar didn't dissolve and the result was pretty tart stuff. So, naturally, I asked Em and Mo if they wanted homemade limeades so I could reinforce their paranoia about Daddy's little poisoning scheme.



I got out my seldom used martini shaker to solve the sugar mixing problem. Worked like a charm. Why do I even have a shaker? When I drink martinis, I just keep the gin in the freezer and pour it, straight, into a frosted glass over the olive with a drizzle of the brine. I can scarcely remember the last time I had a martini, though maybe that is a side effect of having a martini at all.



The shaker, I think, was purchased a couple of years ago when I discovered sidecars. The cocktail I had at Jardine's was delightful but freakishly expensive. I made a few lame attempts to recreate the drink at home, but I wouldn't pop for the high dollar brandy and my attempts were disappointing. I don't know why I thought rot gut brandy would make good sidecars any more than rot gut gin makes good martinis, but in any case I ended up with a good limeade mixer.



I squeezed the juice of one lime, added about a tablespoon of sugar, some ice and shook it like it owed me money. Then I decanted it into a pint sleeve and topped up with club soda. For Em, I added Grenadine (which I had in the fridge, and that is a mystery because I can't even think of a cocktail I like that calls for that shit). She wanted a cherry limeade, and when I let her taste the Grenadine she said it was cherry.



Don't tell her it's actually pomegranate, I'm trying to poison her, remember?

The Impact

I owe Pastor Dan an email about the autism ministry I'd like to see Heartland develop. I've been mulling it over, trying to think of what the most important things to get across are. But this video, I think, tells a big part of it. It shows a family with an autistic daughter a little older than Mo. And the family has clearly gone astray in serious ways, letting the symptoms dictate more than is healthy.

But expedient solutions, like letting Marissa hog the family computer, are not as far out in this case as it might seem. When you're exhausted, and take it from someone who knows, autism is exhausting for the whole family, expedient solutions are the only ones that count.

I know a lot of families with autistic kiddos and I know only three intact marriages among them. Of those three, the wife of one couple has mentioned more than once wanting a divorce and the husband of another has confided in me details that sound alarmingly close to the 'You have been served' stage of marriage I'm familiar with. The third family? I don't know them well enough for such confidences, though they appear to be holding up.

I think that tells the story about as well as this video: the divorce rate for families with autistic kids is astronomical.

And as it's mentioned at the end of the video, the professional help this family is enjoying in exchange for offering themselves to the CNN cameras, is $20,000 for five days. How many impacted families, and we're talking about a disorder that is diagnosed in 1 out of 150 American kids, has resources like that?

Heartland draws something like 2000 people a week, but only two autistic kids I know of, mine being half of them. And watching this video, do you get some idea why all those other families aren't at church on Sunday?

What It Was Was Football

I'll go out on a limb and assume that if you care who won the Super Bowl, or even who was in the Super Bowl, you already know about it. I watched a pretty good chunk of it, including the amazing interception run back for a touch down and all of the fourth quarter. Great game. Fabulous.

I didn't have a rooting interest, except that the Steelers are the AFC team, and my team is too. And I hate it when teams move, and the Cardinals have done it twice, the Steelers haven't. That's not an overriding deal, I'd root for the Cards against, say, Dallas or Oakland, but not the Steelers.

I like Kurt Warner and wouldn't mind seeing him get in the Hall of Fame, and winning with two teams would probably make that happen. But with the Steelers having such a low coefficient of evil, it wasn't until it looked like the Cardinals had wiped out the biggest deficit ever overcome in a Super Bowl that I started thinking it'd be cool if they won it.

But it was even cooler when they basically did that and the Steelers were able to take it back yet again. After that safety and all that, wow. The Cardinals may not be as evil as the Cheatriots, but take that you Mayflower franchise.

Sco

I've fairly worshiped John Scofield since high school. I won't say he's categorically my favorite jazz guitarist, but he's probably in the top three of those still breathing. A few of his records, Bar Talk, Rough House, East to Wes, etc., that have not been reissued on CD are among my top reasons to continue owning and operating a turntable.

For you younguns, a turntable is like a CD player from the Flintstones.



Anyway, I pestered a friend for a comp ticket, and he did me one better, giving me his own ticket since he's fighting a sinus infection. The difference is between sitting upstairs in the cheap seats and sitting in the fifth row.

I got there early for the pre-concert 'talk,' and I was all amped about it but then it was kind of painful to witness. Not that Sco was short for words as Doug Tatum, the excellent executive director of the Folly Theater, quizzed him. These were questions Sco had obviously answered hundreds of times before. Some of his answers were entertaining, anecdotes about Miles, Gerry Mulligan, Billy Cobham, etc. But I got the sense that if he was that good at talking about shit, he'd have been a writer or a public speaker instead of a guitarist.



How was the concert? Spectacular. Beyond spectacular, really. It's a trio, Bill Stewart on drums, wunderkind Matt Penman on bass, great stuff. My mate in the next seat (who go the other obscenely good free ticket) was hoping for Steve Swallow, and who can blame him, but this is one solid trio.

I confess I've fallen behind on Sco's work and am not familiar with the trio CD this show was pimping. In fact, the second track I tried to place from those old vinyl albums. What album is that from? I was thinking. The one I haven't heard, it turns out. I guess there's some musical DNA in common between them because the records are three decades apart. And Sco's post-Miles playing/composing normally seems so far removed from those old albums.