A Life of Spice

Two cents a spice -- iPHONE app called iSpice

(Many thanks to David Leite for creating this gorgeous icon ad). 

Want to learn more about cardamom? What to know where you can buy curry leaves? Wondering exactly what Berbere is? Want tips on how to cook with peppers? Now there is an app for that!

I hope this will help cooks all around the world learn more about familiar spices and gain knowledge about what new spices they could use. 

My super simple app on spices releases today. My hope is that you will add your own tips, recipes, links on where to buy into the app and grow it and make it your own. This is a start. We are going to add a lot more with upcoming versions. But I wanted to create this for all my readers - a simple way to find and buy spices with links on wonderful recipes and youtube videos related to the spice/herb. I did this project on my own without big sponsors, without a budget. It is a start of something very useful. I hope. 

Have a spice/seasoning/herb that you love that is not featured? Write to me and I will add it in the next version. Have a recipe with a herb you love .. email me a link and I will add it. Or you can add it yourself in the comments section of each spice. 

Are you a nutritionist? Would you like to enter information on the benefits of the spice? Share your expertise with us using the comments section on each spice. Would love to learn from your expertise!

Consider this: When the super talented folks at Leite's Culinaria saw the application, they decided they would add links to their own recipes to several spices/herbs in this tiny app. So in the next version, we will be linking to over 100 recipes from Leite's Culinaria!! I also heard from a national magazine whose staff will also add recipe links in the next version! I am over the MOON. 

I hope you will buy it and more importantly add to it - your recipe links, photos, your experiences with the spice. This is a project that will grow with its users adding more information. So come one, download, click and go iSPICE!!

Some sample screen shots to show you what to expect -- 

NPR's All Things Considered: Saffron, Dec 2010

I am super excited to be on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED today with guest host Guy Raz discussing saffron. I spent some time with him in the kitchen cooking up a saffron carrot soup and this lovely saffron yogurt dessert featured here. I hope you will all tune in. Would love to hear your comments. 

Here is the text for the show --Click here for the text and audio ( coming soon)

, going to post the audio when it goes on. 

 

Indian yogurt pudding with saffron

Adapted from Modern Spice by Monica Bhide (Simon & Schuster, 2009)

 

 

Ingredients

 

1quart  plain yogurt

¼ -1/2 cup granulated sugar (or to taste) or honey

2 tablespoons ricotta

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, steeped in 2 tablespoons warm milk/cream

Garnish: Saffron Threads

 

1. To prepare yogurt cheese, place a colander over a medium bowl. Line the colander with several layers of cheesecloth.  Place yogurt in cheesecloth. Refrigerate at least 8 hours, until whey has drained out (overnight works best).
2. Spoon yogurt cheese into a clean bowl. (You can discard the whey.) Add granulated sugar and ricotta. Mix well with a spatula or hand-held blender. Adjust sugar to taste, adding up to 1 tablespoon more.
3. Blend the saffron and milk into the yogurt mixture.
4. Chill at least an hour.
5. To serve, spoon the yogurt cheese mixture into serving cups and garnish with saffron.\. Yield: 4  servings (serving size ½ cup per person)

 

Variation – you can also top with plain, unsalted sliced pistachios. You can also garnish with pomegranate arils, strawberries, kiwi slices and more. 

 

BIG NEWS! Syndicated!!!

OMG -- This is OMG news - If someone had said that this could happen to me five years ago, or even last month, I would have laughed in their face. But, it has and now I am grateful, humbled, intimidated and yes, over the moon!

I have been syndicated! My syndicated column, SEASONINGS, will be distributed by the amazing team at Scripps Howard News Media. They go to over 300 news outlets. Seems unreal? Yes, to me as well!

Here is the press release with all the delicious details - NEW FOOD COLUMN - SCRIPPS

 

My essay included in BEST FOOD WRITING 2010!!!!!

I am so honored and so pleased to announce that my essay, Does a recipe need to be complicated to be good, was selected for BEST FOOD WRITING 2010.  It really says something when a blog post is worthy of being included in a such an esteemed collection! 

I got a copy of the book in my hands.  I am going to be honest at the risk of sounding really cheesy. I held it close and yes, I cried. This is my third time in this series and it feels like the first time. As I flip through the pages, I see I bylines  - Todd Kliman, Tim Carman, Jane Black, David Leite, Kim Severson... all the writers whom I so admire. I feel very blessed and, honestly, like bit like a little kid who was just given the keys to the candy store. I cannot wait to read this amazing collection. Holly Hughes does it again!

Order your copy here --at Amazon or here at Barnes and Noble. 

Event: The Past is Present: Indian Food Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, Sept 29th

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The Past is Present: Indian Food Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Date: Wednesday, September 29, 2010.
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Place: Indique Heights at 2 Wisconsin Circle, Chevy Chase, Maryland
At the intersection of Western Ave. & Wisconsin Ave. – take elevator to 2nd level
Parking: Available in the building for $3.00; Metro: Red Line Friendship Heights
Cost: Les Dame Members $55.00; (1) Guest of a Dame $55.00; Additional Guests and non-Dames $65.00
RSVP: Online at www.lesdamesdc.org or by phone at 202-973-2168 by 9/25/10

There’s nothing new about fusion cooking in India, where, for centuries, a thrilling amalgamation of borrowings and innovations have joined with tradition to produce one of the world’s great cuisines. Over the years, cultural and religious multiplicity, climatic and geographic diversity, and successive invasions by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Moguls, Portuguese, British, and others have shaped India’s regional dishes. And though "fusion" has new meaning in today’s global kitchen, in India the past is always present.

Our evening kicks off with slide-illustrated talks explaining how modern Indian food combines time-honored and distinctly regional styles with new culinary influences and cross-cultural ingredients. A dazzling exhibit of aromatic spices further illustrates the complexity of Indian cuisine. And our lavish buffet dinner brings the urbanity of today’s Indian table to tasty life.

Describing the traditional (and his own take on it), is our host K.N. Vinod, master chef and Chennai native and co-owner of Indique Heights, Indique, and Bombay Bistro restaurants. Dame Monica Bhide, cooking teacher, culinary journalist, and author of Modern Spice, The Everything Indian Cookbook, and The Spice is Right: Easy Indian Cooking for Today, explains the contemporary, with an emphasis on the transnational cooking she experienced growing up in an Indian family in the U.S.

Special Les Dames d’Escoffier Regional Menu Cocktails & Snacks: Tamarind Margarita & Mangotini and Passed Marsala Peanuts & Cashew Pakoras Appetizer Station: Vegetable Samosa Chat and Papri Chat - New Delhi; Bhel Puri – Mumbai; Mussels a la Indique – Pondicherry; Syrian Lamb Fry – Kerala Main Courses: Malabar Shrimp Curry – Kerala; Chicken Mughalai – Lucknow; Lamb Nilgiri Khorma – Tanilnadu; Bhindi Sholapuri – Maharashtra; Aloo Jerra – Uttar Pradesh; Kadai Paneer – New Delhi Mushroom Matter – New Delhi; Dal Makhani – Punjab Assorted Breads; Papads; Lemon Rice – Tamilnadu; Jerra Pulao – New Delhi Accompaniments:Cucumber Raita, Assorted Chutneys and Pickles Desserts: Mango Cheese Flan with Raspberry and Mango Coulis; Shreekandh Brulee (Indique Heights’own version)

EVENT: DRINKDOTTHINK, NYC, October 5th 2010

 

Drink.Think:  a new reading event for drink and food writers

 

 

Come thirsty to the inaugural Think.Drink reading event, to be held on Tuesday, October 5 at 7pm, at Jimmy’s No. 43 at 43 E. 7^th St.  

 

FREE admission but RVSP required:  Email Kara please

 

Come out, enjoy an artisanal ale, and hear drink and food writers read from their work about beverages – the first spoken-word event dedicated to celebrating what we drink!

 

Curated by wine and spirits writer Kara Newman, participants include:

 

        Monica Bhide, author of Modern Spice

        Nancy Davidson, fiction writer

        St. John Frizzell, food and drink writer, and owner/bartender at Fort Defiance

        Ramin Ganeshram, author of Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago

        Lisa McLaughlin, editor-in-chief at Food Republic

        Noah Rothbaum, author of The Business of Spirits and EIC of Liquor.com

        Jason Wilson, Washington Post spirits columnist and author of Boozehound

        Amy Zavatto, contributing editor, Imbibe Magazine

 

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

 

In addition to the outstanding beer and wines available at Jimmy’s, we’ll also have some exclusive imbibe-able surprises on hand! Come out at 6:30 to drink; the reading begins at 7:00pm. For more information about the event, please visit http://drinkdotthink.wordpress.com.

 

FREE admission but RVSP required: Email Kara please. 

 

Is India ready for gastro porn?

Just doubleclick on the image below to make it readable. And dont you DARE compare how I look to the drop-dead gorgeous Padma. 

 

India's Spice Girls, Deccan Chronicle/Asian Age, August 15th 2010

I am so honored to be featured in this cover story on India's Spice Girls.  

You can read the article here and here is an excerpt:

"Monica sums it up saying, “Food touches us so intimately: the smell of coffee can remind you of your grandmother’s house or smoking eggplant may remind you of the way your mother cooks baingan bharta. Food makes memories and memories make life.”

EVENT: Speaking at Georgetown University, Sept 21st

I am not really sure how to express what I feel. A few months ago, I spoke at Yale on food writing and now I am going to be a guest speaker (for an evening) at Georgetown University speaking with a group of journalism students on food writing. I am so thrilled that food writing is getting recognized by such great institutions.  And on a personal level, this still seems unreal to me. When I was applying to graduate schools, these colleges seemed so out of reach - too expensive and demanding credentials that I could only dream of. I filled applications and then never sent them in. 

Finally, I got my nerve up and applied and graduated from George Washington University.. which I love and adore. .. I never did get to Georgetown.. until now. 

Today, I feel very fulfilled. As if the Universe is giving me a message. I am listening and trying to internalize it: Dont give up on your dreams. There are many ways to make them come true.... They may not come true on your time and schedule but if you believe deep enough, the Universe has a way of making things come true... The mechanics of the implementation of dreams are out of our control... all we can do is create the vision and the dream. And then the toughest part: believe that it will happen and take actions towards it. All the time keeping the power of the dream alive. 

Okay.. now I will go drink some coffee so that I sound a bit more coherent and not like a sap!

U.S is a spicier nation, NPR Morning edition interview

My brief appearance on NPR's Morning Edition - clickty click

Some highlights from Andrea Hsu's wonderful piece - 

"Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show big gains in Americans' spice consumption since the 1970s, including 600 percent more chili pepper, 300 percent more cumin, and a whopping 1,600 percent more ginger.

McCormick, the world's largest spice and seasoning company, produces more than 1 billion bottles of spices and seasonings annually in its Hunt Valley, Md., plant, nicknamed "Spiceville." The company's net sales in 2009 topped $3 billion."