1. Inappropriate, Party of One. Did John Curtas, the brilliant KNPR food critic whom I very much admire and whose recommendations I flawlessly follow, really Tweet this below about Namaste Indian Cuisine?
And, as a side note, are there really (m)any Native American ("feathers") restaurants anywhere? I've never actually heard of a Cherokee eatery, have you? Would people have actually been confused as to which sort of Indians he meant?
2. Photo of Last Week: I just love this image of the birds perched on almost every letter of the Bagelmania sign:
I wanted to tell the two birds not perched that there are spaces reserved for them on the L, M or I.
3. Snakes At the Cafe: If you didn't catch this on my Twitter feed on Saturday, take a look at the accessory around this fellow's neck at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf I write at near UNLV.
Wow. Just...wow.
4. Blogger's Rorschach Test:
What is that little graphic thing? It's been there on my Blogger dashboard for weeks. Is it a boat? A piece of cake? What? And, more importantly, why?
5. My Kitchen Misadventure: Last week, Miles had to work really late on the fifth anniversary of our first date -- see, it's not just the podcast that's suffering! -- so I decided to salvage the occasion by making a special dessert from this recipe I got from Gourmet. Actually, it wasn't from the magazine itself but from an ad for Spice Island cinnamon (which I did not use) in soon-to-disappear Gourmet. Here's the recipe and this was what it was supposed to look like:
Yet when I tried to make those almond crisps, the first time this is how it looked:
Oops. I didn't get how little of the batter would spread out. I also didn't know the difference between wax and parchment paper. (That's wax. It sticks. Now we know.) Still, I kept trying and managed to pull off three of them the right way after a lot of trial-and-error. Here's what I served Miles:
Mine is not photographed as it went hatless owing to the fact that only three crisps actually turned out right. KLAS-TV's Edward Lawrence, reacting on his Twitter feed to my posting of that image, wrote:
Eddie was, in a rare shock, wrong. It was yummy. And I got the filling spot-on.
5 comments:
I always find it odd that people up here call it 'East Indian Cuisine', mostly as back in the UK Indian cuisine is normally divided between Southern and Northern (with Bengali and Kasmiri also being proudly displayed as the style at some restaurants). I wondered why there was no adverts for those styles.
Then I realized it was to differentiate with West Indian Cooking and First Nations cooking.
Anyways, John Curtas's description isn't really acceptable.
I believe that is a cake in the Blogger logo celebrating their recent 10th anniversary as a blogging service.
http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/08/blogger-is-turning-10.html
I've lived in "Indian Territory" for 50 years and never seen any Native American cuisine. Except Indian Tacos, and I don't think that counts. Maybe it was just a bad week for Curtas; his unfair attack on Downtown made my blood boil.
(whining sing-song) Steeeeeeeeeve! C'mon! I love that colorful euphemism, "Dot, not a feather" to describe the proper Indian terminology. The first time I heard it -- five years ago, at a craft retreat in Wisconsin -- the phrase even came with an illustration, as the utterer poked a finger into her forehead between her eyebrows, "dot," and then held up her finger behind her head, "Not a feather." Oh! I laughed. I was enchanted. I will never forget it. I'm charmed even now, just thinking about it. Am I easily amused? Oh, yes, we established that ages ago. But why would you complain? It's entertaining! Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you, Steve.
Now, as to Native American cuisine -- We used to make some dishes at Camp Cherokee for Girls in Clarksville, GA, on Indian Day. Yes, I said Indian Day. Deal. Anyway, I don't remember the names of the dishes, but they consisted of lots of corn-based things, and gamey things, and stew type things. And we were assisted by actual Cherokee Indians, so I can only assume they knew of what they spoke. I don't remember much about the dishes, really.
But Native American cuisine does exist... somewhere. Maybe you should come to visit Cherokee, NC, to find out for sure! I think there are even some "casinos" there that you can compare to LV!
"Dot not feather" is a pretty old and innocuous phrase, at least in Minnesota where we have populations of both. Blame Columbus for creating the confusion (and the whole pandemic-disease-wiping-out-everyone thing).
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