A Literary Culinary Journal
“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.” — Julia Child
This past weekend, we got much needed rain. It was a welcome relief to the parched hills and landscape around us. All day long dark clouds played hide and seek, and brought spurts of heavy showers, at times accompanied by loud winds. I sat at my kitchen window observing nature’s enormous beauty. Washed in the rain, it had come alive.
cilantro
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by Renu Chhabra
“Cookery is not chemistry. It is an art. It requires instinct and taste rather than exact measurements.” — Marcel Boulestin
Healthy and easy might not sound very complicated, but I’m not talking about a cup of yogurt or a bowl of fruit. I am thinking of something hearty and flavorful with a farm-fresh bite. When the vegetable drawer in the fridge is begging for a visit to the produce market, it can become challenging to bring farm-fresh bite to the plate. This was the dilemma I was facing last night.
When I opened my fridge, I found just a couple bell peppers and a bunch of parsley were keeping each other company in the vegetable drawer. While I was wondering how to make the most of what was available, I found two slender carrots and a lemon hidden in a corner of the drawer. I was hoping to come up with something that would satisfy my appetite. A look in the pantry to find some bulgur and a can of garbanzo beans completed the recipe — a well balanced meal of vegetables, whole grains, and protein. It seemed like another victory over a culinary battle!
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According to the Urban Dictionary, a carnevoyeur is “a vegetarian who derives satisfaction from watching other people eat meat or hearing about the eating of meat.”
It refers to the type of person who says she’s a vegetarian and talks about it ad nauseum, but can’t resist asking if she can have a taste when she sees a plate of boeuf bourguignon or crispy fried bacon.
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by Renu Chhabra
“I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation.” Madame Benoît
Around this time of the year, our love for squash grows. I’m part of that “our.” I love their oddball shapes, different textures, and sweet flesh. I always find myself admiring them in grocery stores, as if they were art objects, each one unique in its color and shape. And since coming to the States, I have discovered more “oddballs” than ever to fall in love with. What can I say? They intrigue me. In fact, I’ve been writing about them consistently on my new blog, Simple Sustenance for Us, with great enthusiasm.
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by Renu Chhabra
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.–George Eliot
Fall is a perhaps the earthiest of seasons. Crisp air, fallen leaves, and trees changing hues make it a season to savor before winter sets in. For me, it’s a pleasant reminder of the holiday season ahead. But most of all, fall brings us an abundance of harvest.
The first thing that comes to my mind is pumpkin – the good old orange ball, greeting us at farm stands and grocery stores. Big, small, mini, round, and some not so round — they all whisper, “Take me home with you!” How can you ignore these scrumptious beauties? Even though they are not the easiest of fruits to peel, if you can win that battle, there are endless ways to enjoy them, sweet or savory.
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by Jenn Oliver
Fruit deserves to have a place outside of dessert. Dessert is often shunned for fear of ingesting too many sugar-filled calories and a myriad other reasons, and sadly fruit is often under-appreciated, being associated only with a guilty, and even naughty, indulgence.
How often do we associate certain fruits solely with pies, tarts, scones, cakes and other sweet delights? Such a view not only limits our appreciation for fruit, but forces upon us a paradigm that fruit should be “improved upon” by making it even sweeter than it already is. Maybe for some acidic fruits, such as certain berries or citrus fruit, this is true, but many are already pleasurably sweet and unfortunately get overlooked as a valid component in other parts of a meal.
What if fruit were the star of other dishes too? Maybe a first course, served with meat, etc.? Some of my favorite dishes involve fruits, and it’s not just for the sweetness – many fruits pair really well with savory items and I think provide a balance to other strong elements. One of my most frequented pairings this summer has been to add herbs and the tang of locally-made goat cheeses to baked or roasted seasonal fruits. The markets are absolutely brimming with succulent produce, and every two weeks it becomes a “new” mad rush to enjoy as many ways as possible: first strawberries, then cherries, then apricots & peaches, and soon plums and other berries will arrive en masse.
And you know what? Sometimes I think the taste of fresh fruit is even more enjoyable when it is not a part of le dessert.
Click here for the recipe.
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by Jonell Galloway and Simon de Swaan
There is no love sincerer than the love of food.–George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, on July 26, 1856, and died on November 2, 1950. Although of the landed Irish gentry, his father failed at both being a civil servant and working as a grain merchant. The family lived in genteel poverty, and Shaw’s education was irregular, also due to his dislike of any organized training, and ended at the age of 16. Shaw did however develop a broad knowledge of music, art, and literature, thanks to his mother’s strong cultural influence and many visits to the National Gallery of Ireland.
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
