3/31/09

Ich will curry essen!


Oh boy, its been a busy few weeks and its set to only get busier! I have been cooking occasionally, sure, but more often I've been gorging on lentils with celery root and pomengranate syrup alongside beets in walnut/ garlic dressing with blood oranges from this local pizza place across the street. Under $4, full of good health stuff (iron! potassium! vitamin c!) AND it allows me to continue reading the Emma Goldman autobiography that's been commanding my every spare moment. (Read it, it's amazing!)

However, there are a few recent creations worth note. First, my Mom and I attempted to recreate the Candle Cafe's awesome 'paradise pie' on a less time consuming scale. To the left is my brother consuming the result of our plotting. Rather than millet, we used quinoa (much quicker!) as a base, spread into an oiled casserole dish. Next, we put a layer of beans: black bean soup and a can of black beans, both drained, mixed with a little cumin and spread on top of the quinoa. Finally, some boiled sweet potatoes were mashed with a tablespoon of miso and generous sprinkling of cinnamon, and spread on top. The "pie" was baked at 350 for about 30 minutes, and topped with some good old mushroom gravy. Not quite as good as what you can get at that dear little vegan restaurant in NYC, but stlll quite delicious.


Adding to the generalized mayhem, my darling S. was in town from Berlin last week, prompting me to bake up a storm of cupcakes, breads and other sweets. Of course, being S., he ignored them all in favor of coffee and cigarettes. And of course, being T, I gobbled them all up. However, I was able to tempt him into eating one luscious gingerbread cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing. (From VCTOTW, naturally.) He was duly impressed, although I wasn't quite sure he understood what I meant by "wee-gan".

However, he proved me wrong! On Wednesday, after a ridiculously packed day including 3 classes and an intense mock-deposition, in which I had to convince some skeptical mock- lawyers that I was sexually harassed by an imaginary employer, I returned home to find an extremely relaxing scene: S. had cleaned up the apartment and cooked a home-made peanut curry, complete with carrots, mushrooms, green beans, and (gasp!) mock-chicken strips! From what I could ascertain, he liberally used peanut butter, soy-sauce, red pepper flakes, curry powder, and soy creamer. At any rate, it was delicious, all the more so because I didn't have to cook it. And soon my imaginary sexual harassment ordeal was just an imaginary memory...

So now S. is back in Berlin and I'm back into the thick of things... but he did leave behind a specially requested gift: Karl Marx's Das Kapital, in the original German, which I intend to translate into English, page by page. By the time I visit Berlin again in May I should be able to bore people with the important features of the commodity... in German! And maybe one of these days I'll attempt some good old German cooking as well... Although I think, for the moment, I'll be preoccupied with the upcoming passover feast.

Song of the Day: Of Montreal- The Autobiographical Grandpa

7 comments:

veggievixen said...

wow, everything looks awesome! that's awesome that he got into the vegan thing! good luck with your german practice...

yay passover!!

Mihl said...

Wer will das nicht? Coffe and cigarettes instead of cupcakes? Weird :D Everything, especially the curry, looks great here. I am in total awe that you are going to translate "Das Kapital"...I have always been to frightened (by the language, by Marx' language that is) to read it. So all I can say is Wow!

jessy said...

i am totally going to read Emma Goldman's autobiography per your recommendation! thanks! ;) and who would choose coffee & ciggies over baked vegan awesomenesses?!? that's craziness! but i'm superhappyfaced S. enjoyed one of the gingerbread cuppies! and that's just too awesome that you got to come home to a deeeelightful peanutty curry! mmmmmmm! and he cleaned your apartment?!? huzzah! :D i'd like to add that it's awesome you're translating Das Kapital! w00t! and it's also awesome that you & your momma recreated a tasty version of the paradise pie - it looks most scrumptious, indeed!

Bianca said...

I wanna read the Emma Goldman bio. I didn't know there was one. I'll have to check it out.

And the paradise pie sounds heavenly.

River (Wing-It Vegan) said...

Awesome eats! How could anybody ingore those yummy cupcakes!!

I hope that imaginary employer got what he deserved! :D

Anonymous said...

Yeah for Emma! Such a kick-butt lady. And you are one very ambitious lady to want to translate Marx! Make lots of cupcakes to get you through it!

Tami said...

Your curry looks amazing!

Translating Marx? You go!