Spinach Curry with Homemade Cheese (Palak Paneer), Saffron Rice, and Tandoori Chicken:


I had a hankering for my favorite Indian dish yesterday, and decided that rather than buying some pre-made curry, that I would try my hand at making it from scratch. The results were, I thought, pretty good for a first attempt. The recipe was from foodnetwork.com

To make the cheese, bring a half gallon of whole milk to a boil (this made enough cheese for two; double the milk for a larger crowd), stirring occasionally. When the milk reaches a boil, add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/6 cup of lemon juice and remove from the heat. Stir along the outstide edges of the saucepan until curds start to form in the center. Drain the cheese through a double layer of cheese cloth in a colander. Once it has cooled some, gather up the edges of the cheesecloth and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Wrap the cheese tightly, place in a bowl, and weight it down with another bowl full of water. Set aside at room temperature for an hour or so.

For the curry, steam down 1 pound of spinach and pulse in a food processor. Heat 1/3 cup of vegetable oil and add 2 teaspoons of coriander seeds, 4 whole cloves, 2 whole allspice berries, 1 teaspoon of whole cumin seeds, and a cinnamon stick. Fry these until the cinnamon stick starts to uncurl. Add a thinly sliced onion and saute 3 minutes or so, until golden. Add 4 grated or pressed cloves of garlic and a 2 inch piece of ginger that has been grated. Once these flavors have melded, add two peeled, chopped roma tomatoes and continue to cook. Salt to taste. Finally, add the spinach back into the mix and allow to cook down until most of the visible liquid has disappeared. Finally, add some cream.

For the saffron rice, cook rice as you usually do, just add a pinch of saffron to the water. The tandoori chicken I made occording to the recipe on the side of a jar of commercially available tandoori paste (maybe one of these days I will make my own version of this as well).

I served this with a crisp sauvignon blanc, but an ice cold beer would have gone nicely as well.

Stuffed Tomatoes:

I ran across some beautiful organic tomatoes at the market the other day and decided to make a stuffed tomato recipe I found on foodtv.com a couple of years back. This is a super easy recipe and a delightful, no meat meal. The recipe suggests these as a side, but I've always found them to be reasonably filling on their own, so served them with a side of simple spaghetti with marinara.

Anyway, you take a slice of nice crusty bread and dice it into 1/2 inch cubes. These go into a 300 degree oven for 8-10 minutes, or until they are toasted to your liking. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and use a melon baller to scoop out the insides. Strain out the seeds and put the tomato meat and juice in a bowl with the toasted bread. To this, I add some roughly chopped basil and marjoram (though rosemary, sage, or some other herb combo would be equally delicious), a clove of crushed garlic, some chopped up kalamata olives, salt and pepper, a little olive oil, parmesan cheese, and a small ball of mozzerella cheese that has been diced.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and fill the tomatoes with the mixture just described. Place the tops back on and use a toothpick to hold them in place. Bake the tomatoes for 30 minutes or so, or until they look nice and bubbly. Let them rest for a couple of minutes before serving with a side of pasta. I have made different versions of these using either chopped up shrimp, chicken, or italian sausage in place of or in addition to the olives. Last night I had an ice cold beer with dinner, but virtually any lighter wine you prefer, red or white, would be a good match as well.

Suntory Whiskey:

Like a lot of folks, I think, my tastes in terms of preferred beverage have changed over the years. Where I might have been known to drink a wine cooler or two in my youth, I vastly prefer craft beers, interesting wine, and the occasional whiskey. Also like many young drinkers, I chose to experiment with single malt whiskeys once I had a few coins to rub together. Macallan, Glenfiddich, Oban, and Cardhu were the first that I remember trying, and somewhere along the line I fell in love with the peaty, smoky tasting whiskeys from Islay (Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, etc.).

While living in Tokyo and working for the American Chamber of Commerce, I put together a series of networking events at which member companies acted as sponsors and gave away door prizes and the like. One of our best sponsors was Suntory, which was interested in raising the profile of its Yamazaki series of single malt whiskeys among the international business community in Japan. In putting these events together and working closely with Jun Ago of Suntory, I had my first taste of really excellent malt whiskey not made in Scotland.

Yamazaki Malt Whiskey is generally available in 10, 12, 18, and 25 year old bottlings. The 12-Year Old probably represents the best "bang for the buck", at roughly $35-40 depending on the retailer. The 18-Year Old, with its incredibly complex flavors and aromas is one of my two or three favorite whiskeys in the world, but will run you more than double the cost per bottle of the 12.

In March, 2006 my parents came for a visit to Japan and Mina and I took them to tour the Yamazaki Distillery outside of Kyoto. The plant manager arranged a special tour for us, along with a tasting of the Yamazaki 12 and 18 and the Hibiki 17 and 12 year old blends. It was interesting to see how the guys preferred the malt whiskeys while the ladies preferred the more rounded blends. The highlight of the day, though, was sharing a taste of the Yamazaki 25-Year Old (2,000 yen/$18 per taste), which was simply spectacular. Never in my life do I imagine forking over the 100,000 yen ($900) or so per bottle that Suntory retails this stuff for, but it was a spectacular taste experience.

Evidence of a Debacle:

I listen to Morning Edition on NPR every morning as I am getting ready for the day and like most people like it for its thoughtful, in depth coverage of the news and the way it, like many programs on NPR, mixes brevity with discussion of serious topics.

Over the course of last week, one of the features on ME was the audio diary of a young Iraqi dentist, and I thought this was one of the best features on the program in a long time. Through the week we heard our dentist's stories and got a real sense of what life must be like for an average person in Baghdad. The final installment, as he reports on his best friend's kidnapping and eventual murder and beheading is just incredibly powerful.

As I listened, I thought for a moment that this diary should be required listening for our leadership. It is awfully easy to make decisions about going to war without considering the impact of such decisions on average, local people. The circumstances that have been created by the Unites States' rather arrogant attempt at regime change in Iraq are truly incomprehensible. Unfortuantely, and this may just be the cynic in me coming out, my guess is that a listen to this audio diary would only serve to reinforce the particular politically based opinions about the situation in Iraq of the individual listener. Those who think that we cannot abandon Iraq until the political situation there is stabilized will only feel more strongly that is the case. Those who believe that stabilization should be the responsibility of the Iraqis themselves will only have that opinion reinforced.

For those interested, here is the link to the audio diary on NPR*
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14412383

Photo 4: 1998 - Hikone, Japan

In 1998 I took a couple of interesting trips, one of which was to a little town called Hikone (彦根) in Japan on the shores of Lake Biwa. There is a reasonably nice castle there, though it's not one that I would recommend going to unless you're in Japan for an extended period (Himeji, Matsumoto, and Nijo are the three I most recommend for those on shorter trips). The beef in Hikone, Omi-gyu, is absolutely worth going out of your way for. It is absolutely as good as the Kobe or Matsuzaka types of wa-gyu, but goes for a lot less (though these days the regional "brands" of beef are gaining in popularity in Japan, so this may have changed). I had a fantastic sukiyaki dinner there, though, for about $40 including drinks.

In any event, while I was there, I took a couple more black and white shots that I really like. The swan was one of my luckiest shots ever, as I really had no idea that the "wake" would turn out to be so clearly defined. I remember framing the shot thinking that it would be the white of the swan against the black of the water, and when I saw the way it turned out I knew it would be one photo I would always have to judge anything I took in the future against.

Later that afternoon I was walking through a plum orchard, and while it was September and thus abviously not plum blossom season, I caught sight of this gentleman walking alone. I never got very close to him, but if you think about it, he's probably just an average salaryman. When I look at the 1997 shot of the salaryman rushing through Nagoya Station and compare it to this shot of the same type of guy, I see so many of the Japanese men I know. After a busy day at work, nobody minds a nice, quiet walk in the park.

More Food - Pasta with Sardines:

Talking with Mina this week, we both thought that having some fish over the weekend seemed like a good idea. The fish selection at our markets here in Syracuse is lacking, but at the local Price Chopper there is more of a selection than anywhere else and yesterday I was able to pick up some fresh sardines.

I am a big fan of Jamie Oliver's recipes, and made pasta last night based on his recipe for pasta with sardines (from the Jamie's Italy cookbook). I chopped up an onion and most of a fennel bulb and ground up some fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle. These I put into a frying pan over relatively low heat with some red chili flakes and let them cook for about 20 minutes, getting some good caramelization. In the meantime, we gutted and filleted the sardines, and sliced the filets into bite sized pieces.

Once the vegetables had caramelized nicely, the sardines went into the pan with some white wine, some chopped tomatoes, and some good kalamata olives (Jaime suggests the tomatoes, and I added the olives to the party), and I let the sauce cook down. In the meantime, I boiled water for pasta and got that going. Just as the pasta neared al dente, it went into the pan, and then into the pasta bowl. I topped it with the fennel fronds for color, and hit it with just a little lemon juice and some good extra virgin olive oil. Upon serving, a little finishing salt completed the dish. Pretty darn good, we thought.

Photo 3: 1997, Nagoya, Japan

I took several of my favorite photos of Japan in 1997 and couldn't choose only one to post, so I thought I would tell the stories behind each of these. I was just starting to experiment with black and white photography in '96-'97 and these were some of those early efforts.

I had some good luck taking pictures of average people in average scenes with a 70-300 mm zoom lens, and these first two are a couple of those shots. I went to Nagoya Station on my day off (in those days I was teaching on a Tuesday-Saturday schedule, so this was a Monday evening), sat on the floor during rush hour, and snapped away. I caught this salaryman, headed who knows where, on a cell phone. This shot captured for me the pace of life of the average company worker in big city Japan.

The next shot is one of my absolute favorite people shots. Again, sitting on the floor at Nagoya Station, this group of high school students happened by, and I got this shot. In the late 1990's, high school girls were more and more on the leading edge of trends in fashion, technology, etc. and the coolest of the cool had begun to take on a sort of detached, disaffected attitude that I think comes across in this photo. Where the salaryman above seemed to have noticed me, and maybe wondered what I was doing and why I was taking his picture, these girls seem to be looking right through me to something far more interesting.

While the rest of Japan was dealing with the post-bubble economic malaise that has now lasted 15 years, high school students were taking advantage of a degree of economic and cultural power to cement themselves in a place of influence in Japanese society that remains today. One would like to think that this power had something to do with a sense of youthful optimism that young people in Japan maintained while their parents watched Japan's position as a world economic power erode. It would be interesting to see where these students are today and whether they have maintained their devil-may-care attitude, or whether they have softened somewhat.

Drum Corps International:

The DCI Finals are on ESPN 2 this evening at 10:00 Eastern. Even though the finals were held in the middle of August and are being shown on ESPN, I didn't see any report on which Corps won, so get to watch "virtually live".

Excellent.

I Ride with Pork:

We found some nice center cut pork chops on sale at the local supermarket and thought that maybe something of an Asian/Citrus-y approach would be interesting.

So, I seasoned the pork chops with some sansho (a Japanese pepper), some shichimi togarashi (again, a Japanese hot pepper mix), salt, and a little garlic powder. In the meantime, I whacked together a light sauce of Yuzu-ponzu (and, again, a Japanese citrus and soy mix), rice wine vinegar, and lime zest.

Finally, I caramelized some onion slices over low heat, sliced some orange, and did a 5:30 boil of a couple of eggs for garnish while I grilled up the pork chops for rougly 4 minutes per side. We had a nice salad and some cous cous with sage along side, and I popped the cork on a servicable if not overwhelming pinot noir.


All in all, another nice meal for a Saturday evening.

Photo 2: 1996 (Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture):



Now, there is a photo. Somehow, I thought that this was such an interesting picture for the 2nd in this series. There are so many details in this photo that bring back memories.


1st, the photo is of me and Tomo Imai, the magician/bartender at Milimeter, a little bar in Gifu where you used to be able to get what I thought was the best bloody mary in rural Japan: tomato juice, vodka, lemon juice, worcestershire, horeseradish, tabasco, and celery seed. Yummy, yummy, yummy. His bar was a revelation in the back alleys of Gifu, a place where Japanese and foreigners alike could get together for a good time to wile away the hours drinking, listening to jazz, and playing cards. I've been to a very few places where I felt so comfortable. Tomo went out of business in early 1999 right before I moved from Gifu to Kochi and while the last time I was in Gifu the light over Milimeter was on, I ended up not going in. If it had been someone else running a bar of the same name in the same spot, I could only have been disappointed. Of course, if Tomo is back behind the bar there, it's simply the one place in Gifu you have to go.


Now, I was only going to put one photo in this post, but all this talk of milimeter has me remembering this one great photo of my dad and I that was taken there, so I am going to post it as well. Here we are at Milimeter on January 4, 1997 on my parents' first trip to Japan. Somehow or other, I got half cut off on this shot, but it still should give you just a taste of what this great bar was like.

Now that I am back in the U.S., I have to say that the one thing I miss most about Japan is the local bar. The place you can go and just have a quiet drink, talk to the master, and listen to some music. Perhaps they exist in the U.S. and I am just in the wrong town and too busy with my studies to find them. Or, maybe, my idea of such a place is tainted by the memories of all the 10 seat bars I spent time in over in Japan. Either way, these photos bring back great memories of Milimeter, Tomo, and my friends Brad, Kathleen, Sarah, Maki, and Jodie. Maybe one of them will read this and remember what great times we had.

Mango-Chipotle BBQ Chicken:

To celebrate the beginning of football season, I decided to experiment with a new BBQ sauce and grill up some chicken. I've been experimenting with BBQ sauces using bourbon lately as I think it has a deep, smoky flavor that adds some complexity. I thought that some fruit would temper the spice of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and so came up with this idea.

To make this sauce, I sweated about a quarter of a finely diced onion and two pressed cloves of garlic in a little olive oil. Next, I added a quarter of a large mango that I had cut into a small dice, one diced chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, 1/8 cup of bourbon, and 1/8 cup of cider vinegar and let this simmer until the mango was softened and the alcohol had time to burn off (roughly 15 minutes). Using an immersion blender, I pureed this into a thick, spicy, sweet paste. Next, I made a BBQ sauce base of catsup, worcestershire sauce, molasses, brown sugar, and cider vinegar. Once these flavors had come together, I added the mango paste in 1-2 tablespoon increments until the sauce had reached the level of sweetness/spiciness that I was after.

I had seasoned up some chicken thighs and brumsticks with garlic powder and chili powder and grilled them up, slathering on the sauce as the chicken cooked. I served this with a nice clean salad with some pistachios and feta cheese and an ice cold beer.

Back to School, Back to Football:


Year 2 of the PhD adventure started this past week and this looks to be the busiest semester yet. I have a full load of classes, including an Organizational Behavior seminar that looks as though it will be a bear, and am teaching a section of Strategic Human Resource Management that is part of our undergrad management core. While that is a Wednesday/Friday course, the students are bright, engaged, and enthusiastic. My classes seem interesting, though, and so hopefully this semester will feel a lot shorter than it is.

This year I'll complete the coursework required for my PhD and enter the summer as an ABD. You've just got to take this one milestone at a time, I think.

Meanwhile, college football season got underway this past Thursday and the Syracuse football team picked up where they left off last year by getting shallacked by Washington last night. SU has won 4 games in the last two years and I'd be surprised if they win that many this year. My first love in college football, Ohio St., should be reasonably good, though they will be replacing their QB, both starting receivers, and the starting tailback from the team that lost in last year's national championship game. 9-3 seems reasonable to me.

So, today it's Va. Tech/ECU, Notre Dame/Ga. Tech, Georgia/Ok. St., and Cal/Tennessee. Not a terrible slate of games, so let's hope for some excitement to go along with the BBQ chicken I am thinking of making for dinner.