Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Food trials at 51 are a permanent condition, thankfully, because we are on the constant search for ever-better vegetarian meals. This definitely qualifies:
A GOOD APPETITE
The Ultimate Veggie Burger
It’s difficult to make a veggie burger with great flavor and a firm, succulent texture. This is how you do it.
Does the world really need a new lifestyle magazine at this moment in time? If the magazine is created by someone who revolutionized the way wine is evaluated, the answer may be yes:
CAN A WINE EVER be perfect? If so, who is qualified to pass that judgment? Is it the winemaker who is trained in viticulture or oenology? The merchant with a fabled palate who buys the wines year after year? Or is it the critic, with no formal training but a strong sense of smell, a notebook and an ability to taste 10,000 wines a year?
Photo credit: Shymon
Prawns (also called shrimp) are plentiful in the backwaters and coastal areas of Kerala. Prawns are one of the most popular seafood ingredients in Kerala, cooked in a variety of ways to suit different traditional dishes.
The delicious and spicy prawn masala is a favorite way to use the small crustaceans. The prawns are first marinated in a variety of spices, including turmeric, chili powder, pepper, and salt. They are then sauteed in a pan with a small amount of oil, chopped onions, garlic, ginger, green chili, tomato and curry leaves until brown. Finally, adding the marinade, they are allowed to simmer over a low flame for another ten minutes. Yum! Continue reading
Photo credits: Shymon
When bananas are so ubiquitous here in the tropics, it’s good to have a variety of ways for eating the fruit. For Western readers, boiling bananas might seem strange, but it is quite common in India. Boiled banana is considered an excellent food for infants and children in Ayurveda. In Kerala, cuisines like puttu and rava uppuma (a savory south Indian breakfast dish) are perfectly matched with boiled bananas. Continue reading
Monkey mischief at the Periyar Tiger Reserve, neighbor of Cardamom County
I have never had to take monkeys into consideration when gardening before.
I am at this jungle-like Raxa Collective property in Thekkady, India. I am here to work as an intern to help with creating a more farm-to-table relationship in the restaurant at Cardamom County. There is an organic garden here that is already providing the restaurant with a decent percentage of their staple foods. However, we face a little problem with some main ingredients such as tomatoes, eggplants, and actually anything sweet that we might like to grow such as grapes or pomegranates.
Monkeys. Continue reading
Photo credits: Shymon
Jackfruit is known as chakka in Malayalam, and is mostly consumed as ripened fruit. That might seem like stating the obvious, but since jackfruit is so abundant in Kerala, most households make different varieties of traditional dishes from both ripened and unripened fruit. Some examples include chakka puzukku (unripe jackfruit curry), chakka yappam (steamed jackfruit rice cakes), chakka payazam (jackfruit pudding) and chakka chips. Jackfruit trees are cultivated in the Western Ghats of India. Continue reading
Photo credits: Shymon
In Kerala, sardines are always available fresh from the sea. Rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, sardines are prepared in most households as a staple, especially as a fish curry. Sardine fish curry is one of the most popular dishes in Kerala, and it is not only very tasty, but very spicy too. Continue reading
Photo credit: Jithin
Beef fry is a favorite traditional dish in Kerala. It is prepared with heavy spices and gets quite hot, so it is well paired with tapioca, poratta, and appam. The main ingredients are onion, garlic, ginger, coconut flakes, green chilies, curry leaves, Garam masala, turmeric powder, red chili powder, pepper powder, salt, and coconut oil. Continue reading
Thanks to Atlantic‘s website for this post on a topic (or topics, if ice cream is counted separately from our ongoing discussion of the meaning and importance of natural food) of interest to many of our readers:
Last month, Vermont became the first state to require that all foods that are entirely or partially produced with genetically modified ingredients be labeled as such. This month, a coalition of food industry groups, including the Snack Food Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, filed a lawsuit, saying that the measure is arbitrary and impedes interstate commerce. Continue reading
Photo credits : Shymon
Parippuvada is a popular evening tea-time snack in Kerala. Spicy and crispy, the dish is often made from chana dal, green chili, curry leaves, ginger, onion and salt. After the ingredients are ground, the mix is rolled into small patties and deep fried. Continue reading
Photo credits: Shymon
Banana leaves are used in many traditional dishes in South India, often wrapped around the food before it is cooked. Food wrapped in banana leaves can be grilled, steamed or deep fried. In Kerala, banana leaves are frequently used as a completely biodegradable “plate” in a Sadya (traditional Kerala meals), but they serve many other purposes as well. Continue reading
Photo credits: Renuka Menon
Idly is a popular breakfast food of South India. The main ingredients for this healthy and simple traditional food are rice, black gram dal and salt. Continue reading
Photo credits: Renuka Menon
Poori is a deep fried flat bread made of wheat flour. A dough is prepared by mixing fine maida flour with water and a spoonful of ghee, which is then divided into small balls. These balls are flattened using a rolling pin and individually deep fried in cooking oil. Continue reading
Photo Credit: Jithin Vijay
Kerala Egg Masala is a tasty and simple gravy dish which goes well with Kerala style palappam. A favorite dish for breakfast, the main ingredients for making egg masala is boiled egg, grated coconut, chili powder, coriander powder, onion, tomato and garam masala.
Photo credits: Nobi Pauls
Tapioca is traditionally used in all Kerala cuisine, almost three to four days weekly, usually as breakfast or dinner. The root is prepared in a wide variety of ways. Boiled tapioca and green chili with onion chutney is one method; another is boiled tapioca mixed with grated coconut, chili, turmeric and salt. Continue reading
Photo credits: Jithin Vijay
An easy to make Kerala original, Sambaram is a spicey, refreshing drink perfect for a hot summer climate. Traditionally used as a welcome drink in all Kerala homes, it is also served at the end of Kerala fest which helps in improving the digestion. Continue reading
Photo credit: Jithin Vijay
Kozhakkatta is a traditional, easy to make evening snack. The sweet dish is a steamed rice flour dumpling filled with jaggery, cardamom powder and grated coconut.
Tasters have compared Soylent to Cream of Wheat and “my grandpa’s Metamucil.” Photograph by Henry Hargreaves.
Life without food as we know it? After our inspiration and efforts to launch 51, and all kinds of other good reasons to love food as we know it (and all the forms of food we have yet to know), some tech fellows want to do away with all that? Food without form that we can recognize is fine for short term bursts of unusual pleasure, but not as a dominant replacement. We will resist and delay this as long as our breath and imaginations hold out:
In December of 2012, three young men were living in a claustrophobic apartment in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, working on a technology startup. They had received a hundred and seventy thousand dollars from the incubator Y Combinator, but their project—a plan to make inexpensive cell-phone towers—had failed. Down to their last seventy thousand dollars, they resolved to keep trying out new software ideas until they ran out of money. But how to make the funds last? Rent was a sunk cost. Since they were working frantically, they already had no social life. As they examined their budget, one big problem remained: food. Continue reading
Another look at Flynn, this one in the Sunday Magazine of the New York Times some months ago (click above for the video and below for the story):
MAGAZINE
The Kid’s Table
Flynn McGarry wants to open the best restaurant in the world. So what if he’s only 15?
Organikos 