I’d like to introduce a subgenre of Bengali cuisine known as Indian-Chinese cuisine. Kolkata once had a large and flourishing Chinatown, which was established in the late eighteenth century. Chinese scholars and traders have traveled throughout India for thousands of years, and a few hundred years ago, Chinese merchants settled in what is today central…
A Gradual Invention
The butternut squash is a winter staple for us, and I like the adaptability of its mild flavor. This is a trickster vegetable, riotously bright with color but serene in taste and calm in texture. The markets now carry squash that are manageable in size (i.e. smaller), with a dense upper cylinder and a smallish…
California Dreaming
We have overindulged. On February 9, some 12-16 inches of snow fell in Chicago, and the next morning, in a moment when the stars were aligned in our favor, we boarded a plane and flew to California. Unmarred swaths of snow lay everywhere in the early morning hours. My car resembled a small igloo but would…
Sleet
I’ve been reading Bengali Cooking: Seasons and Festivals, by Chitrita Banerjee. Her book is not so much a cookbook, in the way we have become accustomed to cookbooks, with their glossy pages and beautiful photographs, but rather is a series of essays about food and religion, food and ritual, food and culture. Through her homage…
Halcyon Days
Chicago has been home for much of my life, but once upon a time, I was seized by a recurring case of anywhere-but-here syndrome. It lasted for some time, this urge to experience other places, and in the 1990s and early 2000s, I lived here and there, going to school or working. During the mid-1990s,…
Catching Up
The holidays have come and gone and I have been somewhat remiss with my posts. This is perhaps a bit ironic, because it is the time of year when I cook constantly — for parties, family, and friends — and yet, I seem not to have found the time to write, much less photograph, most…
More or Less
Once I began to live on my own, I cooked via trial and error quite a bit, especially when I was in college and was at a loss for precise measurements and cooking techniques. I learned how to make murgir jhol, not through a recipe, but rather by “helping.” That is, I stood next to…
The Year My Father Grew Beans
My father was a gardener. He grew vegetables primarily. Long before it was fashionable — but rather during the heyday of chemically-rich, perfectly green, and pesticide-laden lawns in the suburbs — my father carved out one-sixth of a relatively small backyard for vegetables. He also appraised the sides of the house, as well as sunny…
Thinking Outside the Box
Once upon a time, a man invited a woman over to his house for dinner. She had never been to his house before, and in preparation, he cleaned thoroughly and made the following meal: Beef shish-ka-bobs with green bell pepper and onion Mushroom couscous Broccoli florets with parmesan cheese He grilled. For dessert, there was blackberry…
Happy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I like the contemporary spirit of Thanksgiving – the notion that we might come together with our families and friends and give thanks to people, gestures, ideas, things that make our lives better, more luminous somehow. Sentimental, I know, but I like the ritual and the everyday magic that accompanies…
