It took 27 days in India for me to admit that I cannot live on restaurant food and pasta alone. I have to start cooking again. Unless a cook happens to knock on my door, I either need to get out and search for one or light the stove myself.
I took a trip to the bookstore yesterday and came home with 5 cookbooks. Four of them are mini ones so I really didn't go crazy. Here are the titles:
Nita Metha's Indian Cooking
Choicest Indian Curries
Fabulous Flavors Vegetarian
50 Great Curries of India
and the one that shouted "Buy me! Buy me!":
Simple Cooking for the Desperate Housewife
Yup, that's how I felt: desperate. A great majority of South Indians are vegetarian. Their grocery stores reflect this. Most of the ones I have visited do NOT sell any kind of meat, neither fresh nor frozen. What I have found are huge barrels of lentils, grains, and lots of other mysterious legumes that would probably be fun to plunge your hands into. Unfortunately, I don't know what or how to cook all of those things! Where's the meat? So my desperation led me to the bookstore.
Today I had to start stocking the cupboards. I perused my new assortment of recipes, and made a grocery list. Thankfully I wrote the Hindi translations down as well as the English, because I would have left the grocery store with either empty hands or a daring assortment of "this looks like whole cumin...I hope."
So my cupboards now contain things like garam masala, chat masala, ginger paste, garlic paste, chili powder, and whole cumin. Just opening the cupboard doors releases a nice waft of spicy air. Lets hope my cooking smells as good.
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1 comment:
Hi - it sounds challenging and also very exciting. Can't wait to hear about how your cooking turns out!
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