The pantry is chock-full.
Bags of flour jostle with packs of nuts.
Lentils and rice hold their own—
whole shelves devoted to them.
Jars of spice tumble over each other,
notes of sweet, sour, savory and something more.
Each ingredient is a possibility.
Each ingredient offers a whole new world.
Come join us, they bid me.
Come, open the door.
Category: Food
Day 36: the spring farmers’ market
Spring ushers in this unquenchable happiness. Even though winter would like to keep a toe in, and bring about days like today, where the temperature plunged from 50s and 60s to straight down to 20s within 24 hours (or from 15-20 degrees Celsius to –8 degrees Celsius), it is simply impossible to not be happy in spring!
Spring signals the onset of something else too that sets my heart aflutter! My weekly trips to the farmers’ market! At the start of spring, it’s been almost four months since I last went. The market itself shrinks and grows with the temperatures outside: becoming smaller and smaller in the lean months of winter, slowly opening up as spring sets in, and then swelling and expanding as summer starts in full swing.
Will I find anything if I go now? Will the greens start making an appearance? Will my favorite stands be back? Will there still be a preponderance of the root vegetables? Oh, so many questions to find answers to!
There is the stand which sells the hydroponic tomatoes till summer kicks in, and the market starts bursting with summer tomatoes of all sizes and kinds! Beefsteaks! Vine! Heirloom! Cherry!
The jam stand, Berkshire Berries—we can finally stock up on: Orange Marmalade! Wild Strawberries! And my personal favorite: wild beech plum.
The always reliable Lanis’ farm stand with its profusion of greens! Mustard greens. (Did you know there are different KINDS of mustard greens?!) Bok choy. Broccoli Rabe. Lamb’s Quarters. Chinese Broccoli. Turnip Greens. Beet Greens. And a wide variety of other greens that I love experimenting with.
And then there’s the folks who call themselves the Ornery Farms, a play on their last name. At the forefront of the organic movement in early 2000s, they decided to forgo all certifications because even the organic certification started allowing over 200 chemicals in it. Soil, water, and sun is what they swear by. They always have incredible foraged stuff, and so many varieties of greens, much of which is always new to me!
I find myself taking big, lungfulls of breath as I step inside the market. It is a veritable feast for the eyes, especially after all the wintering. It stirs something within me. The freshness and the vibrancy that is the hallmark of the market makes me come alive too.
I like going relatively early in the day, every Saturday, about an hour or so after the market has opened. There’s a steady stream of shoppers though not the thick blanket of bodies that will envelop the market and throng the pathways in just a few hours more.
Carting all the produce in the bags, lugging them home, spreading them out on the table, taking the veggie drawers out of the fridge, sponging them down, lining them with paper towels, and then putting the produce away is a weekly rhythm that brings me endless satisfaction. It is a practise that connects me to the rhythm of nature, and of seasons, and to my body.
I find the food I crave changes according to the season: rich dishes such as gratins in winters, and a lighter fare which showcases the taste of fresh greens and veggies in spring and summer. Going to the farmers’ market has done that for me. It has helped me get in touch with the cycle of nature, and with the cycle of my own body. It has helped me attune to my body and pay closer attention to what it says and desires. I really do think that it is only as I began going to the green market all those years ago that my desire to cook started coming into its own.
These trips have introduced me and my family to veggies I would never ever have otherwise sought out: amaranth greens, sunchokes, husk cherries, (oh, I love those and get pint-fulls for myself!) asian pears, fava beans, spring garlic, nettles, fiddlehead ferns, flour that is locally grown and milled, locally and fantastically fermented kimchi and other relishes teeming with probiotics. . . the list goes on. Conversely, I have been delighted to have discovered some of the veggies that I find in India but have never seen gracing the supermarket aisles on the east coast of united states: lamb’s quarters, bitter gourd, long yard beans!
With each visit, I feel an answering call to fall in with the rhythm of what nature is giving and producing. I feel a gladness radiating out and suffusing my whole body. I feel a satisfaction, a deep sense of contentment at being able to enjoy the song that the soil, the seed, and the hard toil of the farmer together make. I feel so deeply appreciative of being in the exact place I need to be in to be able to partake of this bounty. It is a privilege and an honor to be a thread in this vast network of interconnections that makes up something as primal as food and is about our very sustenance.
Day 29: Happy Holi!
Today is Holi, the festival of colors, a festival that says Spring is almost here! Celebrated primarily in the Indian subcontinent, it has religious origins, like every other festival all over the world. Like every other festival all over the world, it has become more of an occasion to come together and celebrate with friends, family, and food—lots of delicious, festival-specific food!
It has been a satisfyingly busy day for me. We went out with some gulal (dry colors) and friends to “play” Holi together. And then came back to have a satisfyingly successful gujhia making session in the afternoon. Gujhia, is a fried pastry with a sweet filling of khoa–which is milk reduced to a thick, pasty, solid-like consistency–mixed with nuts and sugar. It could be a sweet empanada by another name.
I started the day playing a list of Holi songs on Spotify, and dancing in the living room with my son. After which we headed out with some chalk and gulal to enjoy the sun and the birds and celebrate our version of Holi.
Did I mention it was a satisfyingly pleasing day? The warm temperatures really made it feel like Holi. The making of gujhia-s cemented that feeling.
I’d made the khoa and the filling earlier in the week. Today was the day to make the dough, fill the dough, and then fry the gujhia. Working out a rhythm with a friend who was helping with the stuffing and crimping while I was frying made it feel even more like Holi.
I’ve always been the kind of person who goes nuts over Diwali and holds Holi in slight disdain. Not any longer! Next year, I was telling the husband, we need to do a Holi party with thandai (a paste made of nuts and spices that you is traditionally used to flavor cold milk), and chaat, and malpua, and gujhia, and water balloons, and gulal, and some Holi music to dance to.
I’m coming to realize I really do love celebrating certain holidays and more importantly I don’t mind being the one doing all the work and hosting these celebrations. In fact, I actually revel being the center, the hub to which the spokes are attached. Something, which just a few years ago I would have had trouble believing.
But, here we are. While I am someone with some solidly introvert-y characteristics, there is also a part of me that loves putting myself completely and fully out there on occasions. I kinda love realizing this part of me. Feels like I am settling a little bit more into myself when I acknowledge this aspect of me as well.
I’ll leave you with some photos of gujhia-s because oh holidays, are always and always and always about food for me!
Happy Holi to all those who celebrate it. Happy Nowruz to all those who celebrate that and just happy, happy spring vibes to everyone who’d like them!
Day 19: My Experiments With Cooking
Civilization is mostly the story of how seeds, meats, and ways to cook them travel from place to place.
The Table Comes First, Adam Gopnik
I grew up surrounded by delicious food and people with a flair for cooking. Yet, I never learnt cooking at my mother’s knee as they say. I loved reading and all my spare time outside of school was spent with books. I just didn’t see the point of learning to cook!
Fast forward a lot of years and suddenly I was in a space and a time in my life when I HAD to cook. Thankfully, I WANTED to cook too.
I’ve been cooking pretty much every weekday for the last 9 years. Cooking has taught me a whole lot of things and I don’t just mean about ingredients, and techniques and everything that is the process of cooking.
There’s a sense of anticipation that I associate with cooking. Deciding to use new-to-me vegetables creates a little tension at first but it is soon overpowered by a buzzing sense of excitement. I enjoy the process of looking up ways to incorporate the new-to-me-ingredient in our meals (looking at you stinging nettles and fiddlehead ferns!). I enjoy being in that space which transitions from uncertainty to satisfaction as things start falling into place and a clear picture of a full meal with the novel element at its center emerges. That sense of anticipation and looking forward to something is one of my chief delights in life. I sincerely hope that as long as I live, I will keep having things to look forward to. . . it is what keeps drawing the life force in us, and through us, in my opinion.
Till a short while ago, frying had been something I was wildly uncomfortable with. Nopes, not for me, is what my mind would say, as I thought longingly of poori and bhatura (former is a fried flat whole wheat bread, latter is a fermented flat bread that is fried). Stumbling upon information on good fats, how they’re actually essential for our body, and how frying done right can be good for us, were all pieces of the mosaic. What completed the picture was practise.
Don’t worry, we didn’t start eating fried food every week. Just that the arc of practise over a period of time drove home the point that there really is no shortcut around getting your hands in the clay, and just doing it. Turns out, be it meditation or frying, the more you do it, the steadier you are!
I find the parallel between meditation and cooking extends to having the right tools as well. I like thinking I have a tool-kit for my meditation. Sometimes I need to use a guided meditation. Other times, just a soft and unfocused sort of listening does the trick. Still other moments require a focusing on my breath and the soft rise and fall of my own body, or perhaps focusing on white noise. The key is building a tool-kit with practice and time and knowing which tool to wield in the moment.
Having the right tool when cooking is equally important. The tools don’t have to be fancy but having the right tool for the job does help without a question. I find (in cooking and in life) the right tool enables me, stops me from faltering and wobbling unnecessarily.
For a while now, I’ve become mindful about including more varied grains in our diet. Buckwheat groats (also known as kasha) have been a winner for us (my son loves a buckwheat groat khichdi I make for him for his school lunch. The groats are cooked with some whole spices and then mixed with a stir-fry of cabbage, beets, and carrots). As has been my discovery of red and brown rice. We’re finding a mix of white, red, and brown rice works for us as a side-dish for many of the stew like concoctions I make.
Going outside my food zone, err, I mean my comfort zone food-wise has been such an interesting experience. It is always a bit daunting and doesn’t come with a success rate of 100% but does lead to some extremely rewarding experiences. I guess it appeals to the adventurous in me?
As I think over the last 9 years, I see how the knowledge and practise of cooking has helped me build my own intuition about this process, my own inner compass that whispers about the right ingredient-pairing, and which technique to use, and that I should trust my instincts about the done-ness of any thing!
I love enjoying food. And I love the thought that perhaps I am in some way helping my family develop a healthy relationship with food.
“We shouldn’t intellectualize food, because that makes it too remote from our sensory pleasures; but we ought to talk as intelligently as we can about it, because otherwise it makes our sensory pleasures too remote from our minds. The knowledge that our senses are part of our intelligence is what makes us human. We alone know our fun. The sweetness in our morning coffee is at once a feeling, an idea, and a memory. Eating is an intelligent act, or it’s merely an animal one. And what makes it intelligent is the company of other mouths and minds. All animals eat. An animal that eats and thinks must think big about what it is eating not to be taken for an animal.”
The Table Comes First, Adam Gopnik
Day 10: On Food
A while back while planning my menu for the next week, I came across Masa Crêpes with chard, chiles, and cilantro in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Suppers. It caught my interest, and I knew I had to try it out.
Yes, I plan my dinners a week in advance. It takes the guess work out of my grocery shopping and the cognitive load of figuring meals daily out of my day. Plus, it helps me have a good overview of what we are eating over a period of time.
I already had Masa Harina in my pantry so this past Friday I tried the crêpes. They were surprisingly delicious. I also made Mary Berry’s Victoria Sandwich Cake with strawberry jam to bookend our meal.
I love having a vast body of cooking knowledge and recipes at my fingertips in the form of library books, and newsletters, and social media. Sometimes, ok more than some-times, my cooking-inspiration needs a little nudge. Deborah Madison’s oeuvre has come to my rescue time and again. I especially appreciate her focus on vegetables and vegetarian meals since I am a vegetarian.
I am aware that I am lucky to be able to source whatever ingredient I would wish for, and to have the resources and the ability to make from scratch whatever is not. I appreciate the long chain of people involved in making it possible for me to enjoy these ingredients and these resources and I also appreciate the fact that not everyone in this chain gets an equitable compensation for their efforts.
To the seed that carries the potential, I say thank you.
To the farmer who sows the seed and waits for it to mature, thank you.
To the distribution chain and each link in that chain, I say thank you.
To the person in the store, piling the aisles, thank you.
To the authors, and everyone whose soul lights up as they ponder all things food, hello from my soul to yours!
To everyone who feels passionately in bringing about systemic changes, a deep appreciation for you.
To those who hold compassion for everyone who is anyone, my deepest of thank you and appreciation.
Food brings joy to me in so many, many ways. I love cooking and feeding others but that’s not what drives me to cook. There is the sense of anticipation and the mental stimulation as my weekly menu comes together. Then there’s all the satisfying conversations to be had with my mom about what we’re cooking in our respective homes. Really, not just my mom, my aunt, my friends—if I smell a whiff of interest, off I go! The grocery shopping: oh, I so look forward to it. It’s my equivalent of retail therapy. From the months of April – December, all my senses get to feast on the particular pleasures of farmers’ market. And then there is the actual eating of the food of course: from the comfort of dal-chawal to the what-to-me-is exotic and adventurous, each meal is something to look forward to. Food simply engages my soul.
Practising Appreciation 