Indian With Kam

On Saturday night, my flat mate Kam made us Indian food. And it was delicious. In an unrelated noted, Kam told me that she thought my last blog post was harsh to British food, while I hold that I was actually championing British food. Such is the sign of a true artist when one's work can be taken and interpreted in many different ways. Even if they are wrong interpretations.

Kam made a potato and chickpea curry, with handmade roti (a word that I had to google,) and a delicious yogurt sauce. I made brownies. I feel that sometimes, we can achieve harmony in the culinary world that we may find inescapable in our larger sociopolitical lives.

From right to left is Hannah, G, and Sam, G's boyfriend. Gillian was there too but she wasn't here for this picture. Our kitchen is nice. It's the only one that has this corner-booth type setup. All the others in the building have a picnic table arrangement. All the others in the building wish they could be as cool as we are.

Kam is from Hong Kong originally (though she is ethnically Punjabi.) She speaks four languages. She is an amazing cook. She will one day be in running for world's best mother.

Look at those. She made each and every one of those from scratch and rolled them out by hand! I get antsy when I have to buy cupcakes for people who aren't me.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. You can practically see the flavor bursting forth from the pan.

But back to me. This is my blog after all. I made Nigella Lawson's "Every Day Brownies" from her book Nigella Kitchen. This was my first attempt at baking in a country that has adopted the Metric System. (Away from me for a second you can see Gillian taking a bite of Nutella in this picture as well as G successfully hiding her face.)

Metrication, or the process of adopting the Metric system, began at the end of the eighteenth century when the system was adopted by France. Like most things from France, the Metric System confuses and worries Americans. By the end of 1970s, most of Europe had fallen to the flash and jazz of the meter and the gram. But not the USA. Officially, the Federal Government adopted the Metric System in 1975, but it never caught on (even if it is easier, makes more sense, and not based on Henry VIII's various dimensions.) In fact, most recently, my great state of California has actually been moving to demetrication. A decision that I stand by.

But back to Nigella. I was using her recipe from her newest book. It was simple and I already had most of the ingredients. Because Ms. Lawson is British, and the cookbook was originally published in England, the original recipe (indeed, the recipe she gives on her show) was in metric, but mine was in US Customary because my book was bought in the states. Just to clarify, I needed to convert my recipe that had been conceived and published in Metric, from US Customary, back into Metric. It was truly the Victor/Victoria of brownie recipes. I eventually gave up on conversion and decided to use the other side of the measuring cup where "cups" was listed.

And they were good. Chocolate here is different. It doesn't have the bitter chemical aftertaste that some cheap chocolates have in the states. Even the bar of "Tesco's Best" that I threw in with the brownie batter was really quite good.

I'm of the opinion that brownies aren't allowed to have a long life on this Earth. They must be eaten as rapidly as possible, otherwise someone else might get more than you, and that would be bad.

Great night, great food, great friends. AND, if you look closely in this picture, you can see two of my fillings.