Cooking the Books

I love French food as much as the next person, but a girl can’t live on steak frites alone. When a crise de chili strikes, I’ve been known to hightail it over to the 10th, for a visit to Paris’s Indian neighborhood. Here, sari shops line the boulevard, spices scent the air and people scrum to purchase boxes of mangoes. In the Indian grocery store, the aisles are filled with unusual ingredients: chilies and other exotic vegetables, boxes of dosa or idli mix, bags of spices. But, what to buy and how to cook it? For a long time, I had no idea.
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I could eat Indian food everyday, and so I was delighted to discover Monica Bhide’s new book, Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen, which offers an easy-breezy, 21st-century spin on subcontinental spice. My review of this fresh, piquant book appeared yesterday on the Washingtonian magazine website.

Click here to read my review, and here for my favorite recipe from the book — potato-peanut tikkis (mini pancakes) that are sweet, savory and spicy with a delicate crunch. (Hint: Use a full teaspoon of cayenne pepper for a satisfying kick. And don’t forgo the tamarind chutney — it provides the tang that ties everything together.)

The more curmudgeonly among us would call an entire store devoted to cookbooks a recipe for bankruptcy, but to me it’s sheer happiness. As you might have guessed from reading this blog, I LOVE cookbooks. As an extension of this love, I ADORE cookbook stores. Too bad they’re so scarce. I’ve already filled you in on one of my favorites, Books for Cooks in London (in case you missed it, see post here), but I’m happy to report that I’ve found another, Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks in New York’s West Village.

Here, cookbooks new, old, out-of-print and antiquarian are wedged together in a happy jumble. The owner, Bonnie Slotnick, is a true devotee of the recipe, collecting housekeeping manuals and baking books, 1950s-era cooking magazines, vintage cookware, aprons and greeting cards, along with a special section dedicated to etiquette.

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Finally another update in our review of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian! Today’s recipe is “white pizza,” or pizza without tomato sauce, which Mark B. describes as “the mother of all pizzas.” As it makes an appearance on the list of “20 essential vegetarian dishes,” we tried it a few nights ago.

Regular readers may recall that I have not had the best luck with homemade pizza (witness this post). But the recipe seemed easy enough — whiz together 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons instant yeast, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 cup water and 2 tablespoons olive oil in the food processor. Knead it for a minute or so, plop it into a bowl and let it rise for about 2 hours.
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Finally, the labors of my cheesecloth excursion have borne fruit — I made cheese! (Pictured above on a tray of cocktail snacks alongside tapenade, olives and saucisson sec.)

I realize that it is madness to make cheese in the country that (practically) invented cheese, but such is my dedication to you, mes amis, and this blog’s review of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. The recipe for “fresh cheese, the easy way” appears on the “20 essential vegetarian dishes,” and so fresh cheese we made.
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