I first fell in love with Indian food while working at a company in West Hollywood and my boss, who was a true asshole with excellent taste in food, always ordered lunches from Anarkali. I would drive to pick up the large order for practically everyone in the office, and savored the few minutes I spent inside there while waiting for the food. Anarkali's low ceilings and uber-decorative booths offered a sweet escape from my days at work. And they always gave me free beer, which I would give to the head of the company because I was still 18 and not quite ready to drink on the job.
The array of foods on the table in the center of the office would bring everyone together and I slipped in and out of taste bud sensations. I had never liked Indian food, until Anarkali. Then I started eating it all the time. It worked perfectly for my family because now they didn't have to wait until I wasn't home for dinner before ordering Indian. I still remember the styrofoam platters (a rare allowance for my mother) lined up across the kitchen counter as everyone served themselves buffet style.
I don’t want to lose weight, stand in line at the gym, or make short-lived resolutions for 2014 - I resolve to live in the moment.
I knew them so well, I am sure I could have called them by their first name or (at the very least) in our family’s preferred style – ‘Uncle’ Chiang and ‘Auntie’ Madame Chiang, but I had much too much respect for those monstrously large and patronizing portraits that hung in the Grauman’s Chinese Theater to call them anything but Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. And, I always greeted them with reverence each Friday night when we went to the Chinese Theater and to the movies! I guess I was seven, and I had never seen portraits so grand and large. I wonder what happened to them. When were they un-ceremoniously dethroned and where are they now? Probably, resting on their sides against the wall of some antique warehouse in downtown Los Angeles smelling of incense and camphor…
It’s not everyday that you get the chance to try a fish you’ve never even heard of before. Last week I cooked paiche (pie-chay) a fish from the Amazon, also known as arapaima or pirarucu. Freshwater paiche are huge, growing be up to near 500 pounds, and breathe through lungs rather than gills. Considered a prehistoric fish, the flesh is very firm, but also rich and high in omega-3 fatty acids.
Rice paper salad rolls are basically salads wrapped in rice paper. You probably already have plenty of salad ingredients in your fridge, but what about Vietnamese rice paper? It's one of those pantry ingredients I've sometimes bought and used once, and then forgot about. And that's kind of a shame because it has a lot going for it. It's cheap, keeps forever and is easy to use.