mongo_jones

two colleagues and i drank three pitchers of something called annapurna amber ale at the southern sun microbrewery/bar on thursday night. we selected it after sampling two other brews (one rye, i forget now what the other was). the others were good too, and we'll probably hit one of them the next time out, but the amber was really, really good. it was great by itself and also as an accompaniment to a fairly decent mushroom-swiss burger and fries. i always like to try the porter if a microbrewery brews one, but the one on the night (i don't know if their selections are fixed or change--everything was written on a chalkboard) was infused with an unholy amount of coffee, and i wasn't in the mood to stay up all night. i'll probably go through everything southern sun has on tap before moving to the next brewery--if there is interest i can report my findings here.

i have it on good authority that wagner was a staggeringly subtle cook

sakai wuz robbed. morimoto wasn't--did anyone catch how he thought he had won for a split second when the new chairman said "chef m.." only to finish with a "ario"? so, is this going to be a series? this wasn't just a one-off special event? if so, i have to say food network is being very restrained about not telling us where the new show's regular slot is going to be. if it is going to be a series they need to make some improvements. i agree with most of what people have said here: better floor reporter, more alton interaction, no more canned coconut milk--especially when you have real coconuts in the kitchen (and someone needs to tell alton the difference between coconut milk and coconut water). they also need much better judges. the chef guy is okay (though i think he might be a little too diffident--possibly a little awed by chefs with higher wattage? where is his restaurant and what is his cache? ), but everybody else has sucked so far. no more j. peterman from seinfeld or cast-members from the show du jour. there should be at least 2 people who know about food. but, on the other hand, we should be glad that rachel ray is not the designated giggler. the show also needs a little more over the top pomp--i miss the swelling music, the chairman's mid 15th century fashion sense, the operatic biographies. but, on the whole, i liked it. were tonight's shows just a repeat of friday's? or did i miss a couple of battles?

is it me or does that look like a mutant phallus?

i've only been to southern sun and mountain sun (are they related?) -- are there others anyone would recommend over these two?

Crawford Market is the best, especially for international foodstuffs, but I've also been discovering the delights of the Dadar and Santacruz/Parle (E) markets. Dadar has lots of small shops with really interesting masalas, pickles, preserves, papads and sweets - all the lesser known Maharashtrian and Konkani ones. Its a bit of a problem, since the most interesting shops are Marathi speaking only and I don't, so I'm never quite sure what I'm buying. Recent purchases have including excellent Kolhapuri and Goda masala, fresh Alphonso jam, pineapple murabba, ragi papads and a couple of other things I am still not quite sure about. Santacruz and Parle markets are similarly interesting for Gujarati foods. I thought the Bandra-Khar markets would have interesting Goan and East Indian stuff, but I'm actually finding more interesting Sindhi foods. Most of the Goan and East Indian stuff still seems to be done through homes and word of mouth sales. Vikram can we also hear it for the i.n.a market in delhi? is it still a place where anything can be procured as long as you describe it to the shopkeepers?

as long as the process involves no utensils and at some point the mango is raised to the mouth and the teeth used to remove flesh from peel or stone i may be willing to allow for such effete behavior... i was exaggerating, of course, in protest against overly dainty treatment of this sensual fruit--what i described is actually the only permissible way of eating daseris. and eat mangoes in a bath? who are these people who come up with such things? are they the same people who only have sex with their clothes on and the lights off? mangoes, like our bodies, cannot be contained--their juices and flesh must spill.

has anyone mentioned thums-up and the other indian colas? or limca--the indian lemon-lime? thums up was the reigning heavyweight in the indian soft-drink market--after coke was thrown out of the country in the late 70s. it has a great sharp flavor, and is in my opinion the best cola for a rum and coke. in fact when pepsi entered post-liberalization india in the early 90s it had a tough going against thums up (like limca manufactured by parle). pepsi's far sweeter taste was roundly abused in the competitive advertising (one memorable ad had as its tagline the statement: "i asked for a cola not a gulab-jamun"). we wondered how coke would fare against thums up upon its inevitable return. the coca-cola corp. solved this dilemna by just buying parle. they still put thums-up out but no fashionable young metropolitan indian will be caught dead drinking it. (some indian grocery stores in the u.s carry it, by the way.) there were lots of other indian colas through the 80s too--campa cola, double 7, cola-lite etc.

that's it--i'm moving to canada. a nicely written piece of nostalgia--i wonder why the writer doesn't mention the place of mangoes in indian erotic literature, specifically as a a simile and metaphor for women's breasts.

i meant, a specific stout and a specific ale/lager. some claim it can only be a black and tan if the black comes from guiness. what's the guiness and champagne thing called again? those are great!

is there a specific combination of stout and lager/ale that makes up the "original" black and tan?

on mangoes and fiction: amulya malladi's second novel is called "the mango season". haven't read it, so don't know to what degree mangoes actually figure in it--her first book "a breath of fresh air" was not a bad first book, though there were things about it i didn't like.

merely combatting the "only in america", "makes me embarassed to be an american" etc. kind of thinking that this sort of a thing brings out in some people. i'm an indian who lives in the u.s and i've seen this kind of behavior from all kinds of people in all kinds of places. and i'll reiterate: if you stacked up the biggest jerks from all over the world and let them have at each other, my money would be on the jerk from south delhi.

yes, the only civilized way to eat a mango is to grab it with both hands, rip the skin off the narrower end off with your teeth and squeeze the flesh and juice into your mouth, pausing only to wipe drippings off your chin and lips and to lick your hands. if you aren't yet at this phase of evolution you may be satisfied with cutting a mango into 3 pieces--one slice on either side of the seed (aanthi, in bengali) and the seed itself with some flesh attached. if you are an indian and go in for peeling and dicing of mangoes into dainty little cubes, well then you need some re-education therapy.

and yet boorishness is not restricted to americans or even wall-street types. the average north-indian man could give all the villains on this thread a run for their money.

i am one of those people who believes that mangoes are best eaten by themselves. while i am not opposed to mango sorbet (still pure mango), i am not a fan of mango lassis, pies etc. god, i'm flashing back to my boarding school days and school-sanctioned mango eating contests. i believe the winners regularly went through 30-35 at a time. the most i ever managed was about 15. even the terrible stomach-upsets (rendered even more terrifying by the monstrous toilets in water-scarce darjeeling) were worth it.

yes. my father--an east-bengali--and my wife--a korean--bonded over their shared love of cooked stinky fish.

i believe that those who have developed allergic reactions to mangoes are being punished by whatever divinity (or television personality) they worship. penance may help, and may take the form of sending me money, or even better, smuggling me a case of assorted langdas, daseris and alphonsos.

vikram, bhelpuri has filled you in on the sad story of our exile from mango-heaven here in babylon. i smile a bitter smile every time someone who has never eaten indian mangoes raves about mangoes in the u.s: you who have never seen the moon, i say to myself, how exciting it is for you to see a frisbee sail through the night sky. however, it is possible to get fairly good filipino mangoes--tiny, orange things with small seeds (not entirely unlike our daseri). in los angeles these were available at the farmer's market (the branded one on fairfax and third), and i've heard rumors that there are places in denver as well where they can occasionally be found. i've also heard tell, or read in a novel, that jamaican mangoes are very good too--but that the ones that make it to the u.s aren't good at all (this is reported in michelle cliff's 80s novel Abeng). now, if the united fruit company owned a bunch of mango plantations in india you can be sure the fda might change its tune... mongo

i suppose after the years of effort that went into getting it i should welcome all recognition of the doctoral status--just sounds a little weird to be addressed as doc, even in jest. just as long as it doesn't mean getting treated with respect :-) edit to add: as per mark twain, cauliflower=cabbage with college education

in our house we call "the wrong fork" a spoon. or a knife.

i'm not too well-versed on the relative conductive properties of the different metals (there's a great tutorial on it somewhere on this site). but i'd think cast-iron might be good. i mostly use non-stick hard-anodized aluminum pans, but i don't make pulao this way so can't say.

okay, because this is so good and so easy i made it again tonight. did i say it is good? (for those in the u.s: the flavor of turkey from a natural food store like wild oats is sooooo much better than that of regular market ground--turkey--what do they do at the mega stores? wash the ground meat with a power hose?) but i'd like to read other people's keema recipes. caveat: must be a simple preparation.

okay, unless i can use it to open a "gupt rog" clinic in shahdara this "doc" stuff needs to stop. i should never have mentioned it.

that's some beard on the dude in the wine-spectator article. looks like tim curry had a bad accident with grease-paint.