1. It's always interesting what you find on Owen's desk. "Alas, poor Yorick!" à la Daft Punk.
2. Today makes me think of late lamented plan to institute a floating garden holiday. You wake up on a day like today and you think, "wow, this would be a great day to work in the garden" so you just call your boss and say, "I'm going to take my floating gardening day today." No boss I've ever broached this to has agreed, but it seems brilliant to me. Oh well.
3. No thanks to Sue for talking about Golden Harbor to Owen Sunday night leading to us ordering Chinese NOT from Golden Harbor because we wanted delivery. It wasn't cheap and it really wasn't too good. It made me once again think that Blue Apron can really be a pretty good deal, particularly as last night we had a really good dinner of steak with thai rice noodles and bok choy. I find their recipes to be balanced really well. Not a beautiful picture but it's a hell of a lot prettier than our Chinese was the previous night.... I have a couple of free Blue Apron meal offers. If anybody wants one email me. First come, first served!
4. Ernie and Owen are the proud owners of Sergio Webb t-shirts. Can't wait to see that boy on May 6, with Julie Christensen and Chris Tench. This will be great. Julie is an extraordinary singer, ex-Leonard Cohen and ex-Divine Horsemen. Oh yeah.
5. And last but not least, I've been asked for the recipe for the Ginger Garlic Eggplant that I made at the house concert. In the intro to this recipe, Anupy Singla writes:
My husband is not a big eggplant fan, so he was apprehensive about trying this dish. Once he did, through, he ate it for a week straight. He went out one night for a work dinner and said that while eating steak he was thinking of how he preferred this eggplant dish. If I can make a convert of him, I'm sure I can make one of you, too.
Heather is the one that asked for the recipe....saying that Steve likes neither eggplant nor Indian food....but liked it. So perhaps it does have powers....
GINGER GARLIC EGGPLANT
from The Indian Slow Cooker: 50 Healthy, Easy, Authentic Recipes by Anupy Singla
Slow-cooker size: 4 or 5 quart
Cooking time: 5 hours on low
Yield: 7 cups
3 medium eggplants, unpeeled, cut into cubes
2 medium yellow or red onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 4-inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated or finely chopped
12 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
6-8 green Thai, serrano, or cayenne chilis, stems removed, chopped
1 heaping tablespoon cumin seeds
1 heaping tablespoon red chili powder (cayenne) (NOTE: I used half this much and still found it spicy)
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
Put all ingredients except the oil in the slow cooker. Drizzle the oil over everything and mix thoroughly. Cook on low for five hours. If the eggplant begins to look dry while cooking, just drizzle a little more oil into the cooker. Eat with roti, naan, or rice.
To make in a 3 1/2 quart slow cooker, halve all the ingredients and proceed with recipe. A half recipe makes 4 cups.
MY NOTES: I made two batches and divided it into two slow cookers (who knows what size). They cooked slightly differently...one of the slow cookers runs cooler, so I cooked that one another half hour or so. As noted, I only used half the amount of cayenne and still found it plenty spicy. I made a yogurt and onion raita on the side and I do think it was nice with a bit of that. This is the second time I've made this and I will do it again. I don't use my slow cooker all that much, but this cookbook is a nice one. Van kindly gave me a copy of her vegan cookbook and I loved it so much that I bought this one as well.