Definitely hit or miss…
Archive for November, 2007
Heh heh. Balls.
We’re heading to Paris in a few minutes, so I don’t have much time to fulfill the writing portion of my Dinner Project plan, but I did take a photo last night. The lesson: I have much to learn about lighting, but this is a start.
About the meal:
- Spaghetti with Tim’s bad-ass tomato-basil-garlic sauce
- Leftover tofu “neatballs” (a veganized version of this recipe)
- Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Parmesan Cheese (so much for the vegan thing, but this recipe on 101 Cookbooks inspired me)
Au revoir!
It’s a short walk. Across Millennium Bridge, between St. Paul’s and the Tate Modern. It’s usually part of a grander walk, maybe down the South Bank from Borough Market, or from the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand, as was the case last Friday. Last perfect, cloudless Friday.
I was on a training course that Friday. Business Objects. “Bobjects.”
The course ended early (the complimentary pint of bitter at lunch did not bode well for afternoon questions). SoI took a wander around the City and did something I’ve always wanted to do: watch the Court of Appeal in Action at the Royal Courts of Justice.
I sat in on a court session for 10 minutes but never really figured out what the hell they were talking about. Still, great fun to watch the wigged barristers in action. The building itself is pretty damn cool, a huge Victorian Gothic affair.
But Friday’s weather was just too unusually amazing to waste indoors, so I headed out to my favorite walk, which I met just in time for sunset, which cast a strange pink shadow on Saint Paul’s. In a way, I almost like the throngs of tourists and digital cameras on Millennium Bridge. Mass appreciation of architecture gets me every time.
And on this particular day, well, the sky was so clear and the sunset so perfect, I couldn’t help but fill up with excitement and novelty for being able to enjoy it on a workday.
I have this plan to take a photo of every night’s dinner and write about it on my b-log, with the goal of achieving 3 of my many life goals:
- To take more photos
- To learn to take better photos of food
- To write more often
Trouble is I keep forgetting to take these illusive food photos. Like tonight I made this great split pea soup that both Tim and I really enjoyed along with some purple-sprouting broccoli. While eating the broccoli I discovered a caterpillar (now steamed) wedged within the florets. Yet another missed photo opportunity, and another life goal: to be more thorough when washing my vegetables.
After using Wordpress on SmarterFitter, I find it tremendously painful to work with MovableType on spacekadet.org. So I’m officially switching spacekadet.org from MovableType to Wordpress, as you may have already ascertained from the new look and feel.
It’s debateable which is more painful: the switch, or using Movabletype itself. But overall I think Wordpress is more flexible and easier to manage. I haven’t sorted out permalinks (redirecting all old entries from MovableType to their Wordpress counterpart) but that will come when I have another Sunday morning to spare.
Thanks to Tim for all his help.
I am not a woman of many wants. But I do love this t-shirt from Metro 3. And since the Christmas season is approaching, I thought I’d use my new blog to post my humble wish-list. But will doing this create a monster of my consumer desires? Wait and see…
Some of you have heard me speak in loathing of the people who go to the organic farmer’s market just to have an Organic Farmer’s Market Experience (you may also catch these same people at Monmouth Coffee having a London Cafe Experience).
I feel like a hypocrite today because Tim and I had what can only be called a Farmer’s Market Experience. Not only did we talk to the Ripple Farm guy about his cavalo nero kale, but we also talked jam and chutney with a lady from Marinas Organic Garden, right before buying a jar each of Damson Jam and Apple Chutney.
Stay tuned. Now that I have some yummy chutney, it’s time to have a London Cheese Shop Experience.
London is rife with Indian restaurants, but good ones are few and far between. How far? Try two tubes and a bus ride. But that didn’t stop Tim and I from meeting a friend at Chai Pani near Marble Arch last night.
Chai Pani is the only restaurant in London to offer the cuisine of Marwar, a region of Rajasthan in western India. Happiness for me, the Marwari’s are vegetarian, and they love their dal.
Their menu is huge, and somewhat uncomprehensible to us western folk: desert berries, bajra khichadi, kadhi, bitter goard. Almost everything is offered wheat-free or vegan, such as millet rotis, buckwheat flour pancakes, lentil dumplings… they even had a besan cheela!
We couldn’t decide on any one dish, so we each ordered a thali, a selection of dishes served on a circular metal tray. Our thalis varied, but each featured a starter, subzi (curries), dal, roti (bread), rice, and mithaai (dessert).
My salad of whole wheat berries with tomatoes and a tangy dressing was simple, but satisfying. The soy yogurt raita (I requested a vegan thali) was surprisingly delicious. I eat soygurt on my muesli, but wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it with savory dishes. This raita was inspirational: a liberal dose of salt and spice masked the “soyness” of the yogurt. I ended up eating it with a spoon.
The stand-out dish was the dal: a simple but spicy (woefully small) bowl of heaven. I would have been very happy (and less poor) with a larger bowl of this and and a side of roti; everything else in the thali paled in comparison.
Some of our dishes were quite bizarre indeed. Tim was treated to some “desert berries”, black stringy things that looked more like twigs and tasted less like food. For dessert, he received what looked like a bowl of brown sugar, along with some plain jaggery and another bowl of orange-colored sugar. My dessert seemed to be wheat mushed with water and sugar. Sugar sugar sugar. I didn’t bother.
Accodring to their website, “Chai Pani” is a term denoting the offering of hospitality to guests in a sub continental home. If that’s true, then Chani Pani the restaurant definitely lives up to its name. I’m pretty sure most of our dishes were made to order, and the staff are beyond polite. The owner/chef type lady came out while we were eating and asked how we enjoyed the food and inquired why I ordered a vegan thali (kind of weird, but okay).
So the food was pretty damn good and it was fun trying new things even if they were too weird to finish. The thing is, Chai Pani is crazy expensive for what you get. The bill came to almost £100 for our three thalis and three large beers. You can go to Govinda’s in Soho and pay £4.50 for the same amount of food. You won’t get beer or table service, but you do get damn good food that doesn’t leave you in mourning when it’s over. Same goes for Rasa, which is as far as I can tell the best vegetarian Indian restaurant in London.
I guess I need to lighten up and accept that London is really expensive and a $62 USD meal is just life as usual unless you get your meals at KFC or a kebab shop.
P in the tub
Originally uploaded by damselfly58
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