For instance, you can get into the pleasant habit of toasting and grinding your own spices. It is a simple matter of heating them (in this case cumin or coriander seeds) in a small dry skillet. When they become fragrant, after just a minute or so, they are ready to be pulverized using an electric spice mill or mortar. This small effort provides the aroma and fresh flavor that packaged ground spices often lack.

Another utterly simple technique is using the essential paste of fresh ginger and garlic found in so many Indian recipes. For a small amount, employ a micro-plane grater, or the fine holes of an ordinary box grater. The lamb, marinated briefly in this paste along with the spices, becomes transformed.

The next step is the careful browning of the meat with the onions. If the heat is too high, they will burn; too low and you won’t achieve the caramelized flavor you’re after. Attentive stirring for about 10 minutes is required.

You keep using that word, “simple.” I don’t think it means what you think it means. Toasting and grinding the spices before you use them is not simple. “Attentive stirring” of onions for 10 minutes is not simple. Marinating either “briefly” or “up to several hours refrigerated” is not a clear and simple instruction for someone unfamiliar with Indian cooking. And have you tried grating garlic on a box grater recently? If you’ve done it without ripping up your fingertips, please share your secret.

The raita has thirteen ingredients. That is not simple. And you forgot to tell the poor cook that the oil will be very very hot, so s/he might want to let it cool off for a few minutes before dumping it into the bowl of yogurt.

I’ve watched a lot of Indian cooks make breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. There are professional cooks-for-hire who make lunch for a half a dozen households in a morning’s work, food that is made in home kitchens and eaten in home dining rooms. And it is excellent food.

This NYT recipe is Indian cooking re-designed for cooks for whom time doesn’t matter, perhaps.

Oh, I give up. I don’t know whom this type of recipe is for.

For comfortably-off people who use public libraries, especially to borrow books, this is an annoyance and an inconvenience. For library patrons who are on tight budgets, this is a hardship. But for the working and non-working poor patrons, this is a disaster. A commenter at Metafilter brilliantly sketches a hypothetical patron’s typical usage (which is probably not all that hypothetical):

If you can take yourself out of your first world techie social media smart-shoes for a second then imagine this: you’re 53 years old, you’ve been in prison from 20 to 26, you didn’t finish high school, and you have a grandson who you’re now supporting because your daughter is in jail. You’re lucky, you have a job at the local Wendy’s. You have to fill out a renewal form for government assistance which has just been moved online as a cost saving measure (this isn’t hypothetical, more and more municipalities are doing this now). You have a very limited idea of how to use a computer, you don’t have Internet access, and your survival (and the survival of your grandson) is contingent upon this form being filled out correctly.

He ends with a concise description of what libraries are up against:

We’re one of the few places left in our society where a great cross-section of people regularly interact, and also one of the few places that is free and non-commercial. Even museums, to bow and scrape to the master of Austerity, have begun to put branding on their exhibits, as if they were a sort of cultural NASCAR. We have amazing potential power, but without concerted effort I’m afraid it will be wasted. It will look better to save 10 dollars a year per person in taxes instead of funding community computer workshops, and childhood literacy programs, and community gardens. All the while we play desperate catch-up, trying to get a hold on ebooks, and liscensing out endless sub-quality software for meeting room reservations and computer sign-ups and all this other rentier software capitalism instead of developing free and open source solutions and providing small systems with the expertise to use them. Our amazing power is squandered as we cut our staff, fail to attract skilled and diverse talent, and act as a band aid to the mounting social ills caused by slash and burn governance in the name of low taxes and some nebulous idea of freedom that seems to equate with living in a good society but not paying your share for it.

The entire comment is a must-read. I found it at The Verge’s weekly “Best Tech Writing of the Week” post. The Verge has fast become my favorite site for tech news and analysis, and the Sunday roundup post is absolutely unmissable.

When I teach undergraduates about the digital divide, it’s hard to convey the reality of computer illiteracy in a classroom context in which 100 percent have computers, 90 percent have smartphones, and probably half of them have tablets. A person who doesn’t have an email account (and doesn’t know how to get one) is as foreign to them as Samoan islanders were to Margaret Mead. How do they relate to someone who uses up his entire 30-minute block of library computer time trying to bring up the relevant social services website page?

This is a very simple spinach dish, adapted from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe for green beans. She claims this is a Gujarati preparation but I’d never heard of it or seen it. Either way, it’s delicious and it goes with all kinds of main courses and other vegetables. I’ve made it as part of an Indian meal as well as an accompaniment for grilled and roasted meat, chicken, and fish.

3 Tbsp. canola oil
1 large bunch fresh spinach
2 tsp. black mustard seeds
5 med. cloves fresh garlic, chopped coarsely
1 dried red pepper (or 1/4 tsp. ground cayenne pepper)
Salt to taste

Chop the spinach coarsley so that the leaves are  cut into smaller pieces (this is not an exact science, you just don’t want full leaves-and-stems). Baby spinach can be cooked as-is. Rinse thoroughly and spin in a salad spinner to remove excess water (or rinse in a colander, just be sure to get any dirt out).

Heat canola oil in a skillet, saucier or other wide pan. Add the mustard seeds. As soon as they begin to pop, turn the heat down to medium-low. (Partially cover the pan while the seeds are popping and you’ll make less of a mess.) When the popping slows down, add the red pepper.

Add the garlic. It will brown quickly, so when it’s golden, add the spinach. The water will cause some popping when it meets the hot oil, so be careful. Stir to combine the spinach, oil, seeds, and garlic. Add salt to taste.

Cover the pan, turn heat to low, and cook for 5-7 minutes, until spinach is cooked but still a warm green color. Remove the lid for a minute or two and let any excess water steam off.

Serve. Really, that’s it.

This will serve 3-4 as a side dish. You can double or even triple it for larger crowds.

Note:  I don’t think frozen spinach will work because you won’t get the same barely-cooked texture.

[photo via]

Apple, which approves all apps that appear in its iTunes store, addressed the controversy on Wednesday after lawmakers sent the company a letter asking how approved apps were allowed to take address book data without users’ permission. Apple’s published rules on apps expressly prohibit that practice.

But in its statement about the issue, Apple did not address why those apps that collect address book data had been approved.

In that statement, Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, said: “Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.”

I accept that using social media takes what I consider personal information and makes it susceptible to hacking, spamming, and other activities I’d prefer to avoid. I treat it as the cost of doing social media business, so to speak. I reject any requests to download my contacts databases when I create an account at sites like Goodreads and Twitter. What I hadn’t thought about until now, however, is that everyone in my contacts directory has me in their directory (unless they’ve specifically deleted me). If they choose to share their address book with Foursquare, Instagram, etc., my info gets shared.

Therefore, I am limited in my ability to control my privacy levels. As far as I can tell, the only way to do it is to stop communicating with people other than face-to-face and snail mail (since even phone calls would likely put me in their contacts lists), which is not viable.

I’m betting many of the family, friends, business acquaintances, and colleagues that have me in their contacts lists don’t even know they’re sharing my information in ways for which I never gave explicit permission. And since I don’t know all the apps and programs they use, I have no way of telling how secure the transmission of that information is.

Welcome to the world in which we are all Friends with a capital F, and none of us are really private individuals anymore.

The beagle is doing much, much better. The TPLO surgery went very well. The first two weeks were hellish but as the incision healed and the pain subsided, things got easier and she became much happier. She still has to be walked with a supporting sling and she isn’t allowed to jump or go up and down the stairs, but she’s off all the antibiotics and pain meds. Our biggest problem now is keeping her from playing with the Corgi. She is also growing increasingly annoyed at being put in Beagle Jail.

But these are the kinds of problems you want to have. She should be back on the chaise longue, in her standard Sun Beagle position, in a couple of weeks.

And my thanks to everyone who asked about her. She is a sweetie.

I’m making this blog inactive for a while. I have a couple of big writing projects that require more concentration that I’ve been giving them.

I’ll be back when I’m far enough along, and in enough of a rhythm, to do both at the same time.

In the meantime I’ll be reviewing as usual at Dear Author. And you can reach me on email via this or other addresses. If you’ve lurked and enjoyed without commenting, thanks!

Happy New Year, and best wishes for you and yours in 2012.

I wandered back past the travel section and the old maps and fetched up in the fiction section. And lo and behold, look what I found at the very back of the store:

Yes indeed. Angela Thirkell first editions (some UK, some US) for $15-25 apiece. That biography facing out? I have the hardback edition checked out of the library as we speak. (I’ve had a half-finished post on Thirkell’s novels in my drafts folder for months. This told me I had to push the publish button on something, however incomplete.)

I managed to restrain myself and only bought two of the novels. I chose Peace Breaks Out (1946) and Private Enterprise (1947), both of which I’ve enjoyed but don’t own in paperback form (I own many of the books in old mmpb and newer trade editions).

I’m always surprised that more people haven’t read Thirkell. She wrote over three dozen novels set in Barsetshire, the fictional county Anthony Trollope created. She continued the lines of Trollope’s aristocratic, gentry, and working class families into the mid-20th century, adding characters of her own. Each book features at least one and usually two romantic storylines, but they are above all portraits of County England.

Thirkell wrote one book a year, like Georgette Heyer, and also like Heyer, she was not the most likable person in real life. Her books started in the interwar period, specifically the early 1930s, and they were published annually until her death in 1961 (the last was published posthumously with a coathor, C. A. Lejeune), and they chronicle the massive changes that took place in English society over those decades.

I’ve written before about the frustrating way that British class relations are depicted in contemporary historical romances. Thirkell’s novels portray the complexity and richness of these relationships; her 20th-century settings are more sensitive to class issues than most romances written today and set in the 19th century. And yes, I’ve heard the argument that authors enjoy writing about the minority of 19th-century protagonists who were opposed to class distinctions. But if you go by romance standards they are the overwhelming majority. It gets a bit fatiguing at times.

Thirkell was also a thoroughgoing class snob, and her dislike of changing social relations, particularly the Labour Government’s policies to reduce inequality, make some of the 1950s novels mean-spirited and difficult to read. But Thirkell is an invaluable resource for readers and writers for whom class relations are sometimes difficult to parse.

Consider how historical romances today take for granted that a title confers social standing and compare this to a dinner party in Peace Breaks Out:

An agreeable game was then played thinking of all the very unconvincing titles adopted by recent peers and inventing even less convincing ones; though Robin Dale said this was impossible. When this topic petered out, Lady Fielding said she still wanted to know who Lord Aberfordbury was.

“That pestilential fool Sir Ogilvy Hibberd,” said her husband [Sir Robert Fielding]. “Lord Aberfordbury of Wopford in the county of Loamshire. Bah!”

Of course there are gentry and aristocratic characters in whom Thirkell imbues a level of status and power comparable to those in romance, but this standing is achieved by longevity and/or public service, not rank alone.

There are many aspects of Thirkell’s depictions of race, class, and political ideology that are difficult for contemporary readers to stomach. But she gives voice to a historically specific and authentic British type, and even as I disagree with or flinch at more than a few of her observations (especially in the postwar novels), I recognize their validity.

While Thirkell clearly sympathized with the upper classes, her observations of how they both dominated and were dependent on the working classes are sharply observed and worthy of several posts of their own. Stay tuned to this space …

This year we revived a tradition we started a few years ago, which was to keep an eye out for cheap flights and if we found one, book a trip to London for the week. Of course this is partly for fun, but it also lets us have up to six days of research time at the British Library. Since our current project was at the stage where a trip would be really helpful, it was a win-win once we found good fares and bought the tickets.

We stay in a flat near the Library, sometimes as far away as the Barbican and sometimes right around the corner. This year we were five minutes away in a small but comfortable one-bedroom flat with a full kitchen and wireless (how times have changed).

When I first started doing research in London at the India Office Library and Records, the archive was located in Blackfriars in a nondescript building. It was efficient but not particularly attractive. Everything changed when the new British Library building opened at St. Pancras. Many of us who were sad to see the main collections moved from the British Museum to a modern facility got over it really quickly, especially once we started using it. And for historical buffs, the Reading Room (where Marx among others sat and worked) has been preserved at the original location.

The India Office Reading Room is now called the Asian and African Reading Room, but otherwise it’s unchanged for readers. It’s a long, sunny room with lots of comfortable desks for reading everything from current materials to fragile books and private papers:

The other great thing about the British Library is that anyone can use it. If you want to use the reading rooms you need a card, but most people with a legitimate reason can get one, and it’s free. And even if you don’t use the reading rooms, there are lots of resources. There is an informal café, a restaurant, a gift shop, free wireless, places to sit, and interesting exhibits.

But, we did not spend every waking moment in the archives. I know, you’re shocked, shocked.

We ate really well. Restaurants cost a fortune, but we had saved up and planned ahead. As we do every trip, we ate at our favorite, St. John, whose chef popularized nose to tail eating. We also had a lovely and leisurely Sunday lunch in the dining room of the new St. John Hotel, just off Leicester Square. We comparison-ate xiao long bao at various restaurants in Chinatown. We had fancy American-style cocktails and a terrific dinner at Hix. We lucked into a reservation at the wine-bar outpost of a Michelin starred restaurant (cheaper, with great wine and equally good food). We ate mandoo and bi bim bap. And of course we ate takeaway fish and chips (cod and skate in this case) from a great place at the bottom of our street. We drank a lot of cask-conditioned ale, doing the comparison-drinking thing.

And we walked. A lot. Walking is something I really miss about big cities. And there was always something to see. One night we got caught up in a march that looked like the London version of Take Back the Night, coming straight up Charing Cross Road:

We watched from outside the theater playing Priscilla in Cambridge Circus:

Another night we walked over to Occupy London at St. Paul’s:

Unlike Occupy New York, it still has its library:

We managed to get out of London on one day and visit a potter in a little village outside Cambridge. He’s 82 but still works every day, and TheHusband’s family has been buying dishes, cups, bowls, etc. from him for 40 years. We came prepared and packed up a carry-on with our newly-acquired breakables. I’m pleased to say they all made it back in one piece.

To make our luggage even more interesting to the U.S. Customs Beagles, we made our usual pilgrimage to Neal’s Yard Dairy to pick up Stilton, a Keen cheddar truckle, and Brie de Meaux made from unpasteurized milk. Yum. Yes it was ripe and smelly but we wrapped it in multiple bags.

Here’s the obligatory photo to confirm that we were in London. No, not the Eye or Big Ben, but the most recent building to be featured in every London-set film:

And, to mark the festive season, we went to St. Pancras and stared at the amazing Lego Christmas tree. It’s not quite as wonderful as the Guardian article made it sound, but it’s pretty cool all the same:

I realized as I was rereading the biryani recipe that the list of ingredients can look quite daunting. Biryani has a more complex spice combination than many dishes, but even in that dish there is a logic to the way spices are put together.

Indian cooking becomes much easier once you crack the spice code. Allow me to generalize:

(1) Some spices are used in many Indian dishes: turmeric, cumin, coriander, black pepper, fresh or dried red/green chiles.

(2) Other spices are less frequently used but necessary to certain recipes: cardamom, kari leaves, fenugreek seeds.

(3) Some spices go together: cinnamon, cloves.

(4) Some spices are difficult-to-impossible to explain in non-Indian terms, but they really do make a difference: black mustard seeds, asefoetida, black cardamom, tamarind, dried kokum.

(5) Certain spices always have to be fresh: ginger, garlic. Other spices can be fresh or dried: kari leaves, chile peppers.

(6) Curry powder is not evil. Indians have been known to use it. They certainly manufacture it and have for decades. Garam masala is just as much of a spice mixture as curry powder, and it varies across regions even more.

The starter kit for Indian spices

Whole: Cinnamon, cloves, cumin seed, black pepper, black mustard seeds
Ground: Cumin, turmeric, coriander seed, cayenne pepper
Fresh: Ginger, garlic, serrano or Thai red/green chiles, cilantro

Method of use

Whole spices are fried in oil to release their fragrance and flavor the oil, so that the flavors will be incorporated evenly into the rest of the ingredients. Mustard seeds really pop, so a splatter screen is a good idea if you’re going to use whole spices (lids work too).

Ginger and garlic are added after the whole spices. Often they are ground into a paste in north Indian food (this creates a smoother sauce), but you can chop finely or mince if you’re okay with a coarser texture.

Ground spices are added after the whole spices, ginger, and garlic (and onion if you’re using it) and before the rest of the ingredients. You want to cook them for a couple of minutes to get their full flavor. They’ll darken in color and mix with the oil to form a paste, and that’s when you know you can go on and add the next set of ingredients.

Cilantro is usually added toward the end of the cooking process (think of it as comparable to parsley), but kari leaves are added early, often in the whole spice or ginger/garlic phase, so that their fragrance and flavor permeate the dish.

If you’re making something more soupy or stewy, like dal, the recipe might tell you to fry the whole spices in oil in a separate pan and then add it. This is because the dish usually has to cook for a while and you don’t want the taste and texture of the spices to dissipate during that time. So you add the whole spices toward the end, all at once with the oil you’ve fried them in. This mixture is called chaunk, vaghar, or tadka in various Indian languages. If you omit this step, you’ll notice a difference.

You can buy spices much more cheaply at Indian or international food stores if you have one available. Or you can buy the cheaper grocery-store brands to start (McCormick or a house brand in the US); they’re not quite as high quality but they’re plenty good enough. If you don’t want to splash out on USD 30-35 for the starter set, you can omit the black mustard seed, cinnamon, cloves, whole black pepper (substitute ground) and whole cumin seed to start. Buy a small tin of Bolst’s mild or hot curry powder and use it when you want a more complex flavor combination (but use it sparingly or it will take over).

You have to have the turmeric, ground cumin and coriander seed. That’s the Indian holy trinity, at least in my part of the country.

And finally, don’t let anyone tell you that Indian food must be fiery hot. That’s a canard. Yes, some dishes  can’t be made without chiles (e.g., vindaloo, which ironically has Portuguese origins). But there are plenty of non-fiery dishes (biryani should always be subtly spiced, not in-your-face hot), and believe it or not, there are Indians who can’t eat fiery food or don’t like it. In our house we always had the non-hot and hot versions of vegetables and dal because my grandfather couldn’t digest chiles. So if you like spices but not heat, leave out the cayenne.

Coming back to the biryani recipe, notice that there are three sets of spices: first, the cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom, a trinity of its own that is widely used in north Indian and Mughal cooking. Then, the ginger, garlic and onion. Then finally, the ground spices that signal “hey, this is Indian food!” The tomato and yogurt mix with all these spices to make a sauce in which we then cook the chicken and rice.

There you have it. Questions?

When we came to the United States from India, my American mother (who had met and married my father when they were both in college in Indiana) brought with her three Indian recipes (no cookbook). One was an Americanized version of Biryani. When I started going back to India regularly, I realized that it was a less spicy and rich adaptation of what Indians make at home.

It’s basically a pulao rather than a true layered Biryani with saffron, nuts, raisins, and the rest, but it takes less than half the time and tastes yummy. Add a vegetable and some yogurt or raita on the side and you’ve got a complete meal. This isn’t exactly the way Muslims from Hyderabad would make it, but it’s reasonably close, since I learned how to make this from a lovely Muslim lady in Bangalore.

1/4 cup canola oil
1 chicken, cut into pieces and skinned (cut each breast half into 2 pieces) OR
4 leg-and-thigh chicken pieces, each cut in half and skinned.
1 (2-inch) cinnamon stick
8 cloves
10 black peppercorns
6 cardamom pods
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 dried red chiles or 1/2 teaspoon ground red (cayenne) pepper
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
6 tablespoons low-fat or nonfat plain yogurt
3 cups water
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
Chopped cilantro, for garnish
1 1/2 cups uncooked basmati (Indian grown in Dehra Dun & aged 2 yrs or more is best)
Chopped cilantro, for garnish

Heat vegetable oil in a Dutch oven or other large, deep pan and brown chicken on both sides; remove chicken and set aside. Add whole spices and fry 1-2 minutes. Add ginger, garlic, and chopped onion, sauté for about 5-7 minutes until onions are transparent and slightly browned.

Add ground spices, sauté for 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and sauté for another 3-4 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add the yogurt 2 Tbsp. at a time, stirring to incorporate after each addition. Add water, butter, and salt.

Return chicken and any accumulated juices to the pan. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for at least 30 minutes, 45 if you have the time. Add rice to chicken mixture and cook for another 30 minutes.

Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve.

Vegetarian-Vegan adjustments: You can substitute mixed vegetables for the chicken, or even fried tofu, and adjust the cooking times according to the vegetables used. If you want a vegan dish, omit the yogurt and butter. For example, you can add vegetables such as cauliflower florets, diced potatoes, and/or carrots after the spices but before the tomatoes. Reduce the simmering time to 20-25 minutes, then add the rice, etc. Or add faster cooking vegetables, like zucchini, after the longer-cooking vegetables are partway done.