fenugreek

After a relatively fruitless morning trying to describe my 300 page dissertation in as few words as possible (I hit a rather ineffectual low of 274 before yo-yoing back up to an equally ineffectual 295) in my admittedly vain and increasingly half-hearted attempt to find a tenure track job in the greater metro area I now call home, I've decided to pause and tell you about my new favorite spice: fenugreek. You may know all about it, but it's new to me, which has made it, well, the flavor of the week. For those of you have yet to be initiated into the fold, fenugreek is mostly used in Indian food, and I've heard (but can't confirm--and possibly made up) that it's what makes curry taste like curry. I bought it in powdered form, but I think one can also buy the seeds. It's more or less white--like pollen--and has a sharp planty taste. It also has a unique, but unoffensive smell that may be reminiscent of a combination of celery salt, fish, old cheese, and something else I'm clearly missing. I know I'm not selling it super hard, but I used it to make the most lovely lentils! I started with this recipe that I found on the internets: http://vegeyum.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/dalmakhani/ but I won't bother to print it here, since I'm not really sure that what I made in any way resembles this dish. I always forget that one of the problems with searching for and then bookmarking Indian recipes is that outside of not always being able to find the ingredients, they're always in British and I have no real way of knowing if what I'm using is 10g of ginger etc. The easy solution would be to buy a scale, but instead I started throwing random measurements into a pot, with surprisingly wonderful results. So, for the "ingredients" I used 3/4 of a cup of tiny dark green French lentils from the co-op (they weren't the Indian black kind but they looked like them), one can of dark red kidney beans, 1 T of ginger, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 jalapenos finely minced, and enough beef broth to cover the lot (hey, I never made any claims about authenticity or religious sensitivity). For the tadka I used 1 T butter, 1 tsp cumin seeds, a pinch of celery salt (since I couldn't find any asafoetida), a full tsp of fenugreek and a small can of tomato paste. Then I added as much butter and cream as I wanted. I also used the masala and the chili to taste and added a couple tablespoons of fresh cilantro. It was freaking amazing. (I get it that my four friends probably aren't going to run out and make this, but I'm also trying to document my changes so that someday I can make this again. But seriously guys, this was totally delicious, you should run out and make it.)

Steve and I also went to see a truly horrendous bit of performance art at the Reputable Modern Art Museum, but since it was too bad for words, I'm sort of hoping someone will post a copy of it on youtube so you all can see for yourselves. If not, I'll tell you about it the next time I reach the breaking point on my job letter.