I have heard that all wild fish taste different – they are gamey – a quality I am slowly learning to appreciate.  By living in a city, I hardly get to eat anything that is both non-commercial and wild. Hence, an invitation to savor a wild-caught bounty from Hudson River was a rare opportunity.

The allure of fishing lies somewhat due to the fact that it is a quiet and enduring pursuit of unknown – we don’t know if a trout or mackerel or anything at all would be our meal as the result. The wild-caught fish I was getting for dinner was trout. I’ve heard that the rainbow trout are the best tasting freshwater fish in the United States. But do they taste different than their store-bought counterparts?

My chef’s mom used to steam-bake the whole fish. We stuck with the method, stuffing the fish with a mixture of sautéed garlic, crushed almonds, mayonnaise, some knickknack spices, freshly grounded back peppers, and sea salt. Trout were topped with sliced lemons, then carefully wrapped in stapled wax paper pouch, and cooked for approximately thirty minutes at three hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit.

Cooked trout retained its delicate flavor. Other additions acted more like a side condiment, optional to use, not necessary. Wild trout seemed to have a superior flavor, better texture, as well as lively color than their mass “hatchery” produced cousins. A better flavor may be due to romantic notion or really because the wild ones eat fresh natural diet while the stocked ones are largely fed on fish pellets.

The experience of eating wild food reminded me where our food really comes from. Most people in this world grow, fish, hunt, or at least cook their food from scratch. On contrary, most of us struggle with even properly nuking a frozen box of entrée from Trader’s Joe. We import higher percentage of seafood than oil in this country. Are we eating too much easy fish?

At the end of the meal, my chef asked me playfully how much these wild fish fetch in a DC restaurant? I didn’t answer, but quietly thought the experience of eating non-commercial wild-caught fish is far valuable than market price of fish.

A coffee tour that begins from picking up coffee cherries and ends in freshly brewed coffee. I was intrigued! The tour, operated by Assa Coffee in Kathmandu, aims to educate people on coffee farming in Nepal and shows them how much effort it takes to create a cup of coffee.

The coffee tour started early with my guide Tirtha, who was in charge of setting up the tour. We got in a local bus that played Bollywood hits and Nepali folk songs as we headed towards Kavrepalanchok district. During the one and half hour trip to farm the bus made several stops. Every stop brought in local vendors into the already crowded bus as they haggled over local cauliflowers to imported Redbull.

When we arrived at the farm, one of the coffee farmers’ daughter offered us a glass lemon tea in a typical stainless steel glass, which has become the standard Nepali cup for past few decades. Nepal is nation of tea drinkers. A cup of tea is offered every time you visit someone’s home, even home of coffee farmer’s.

The coffee seed was first planted in 1938 in Gulmi district by a monk named Hira Giri, who brought them from Myanmar.  But it was only until the late 1970’s commercial farming slowly took off, finally picking up the pace in 1990’s. Currently coffee is farmed in about twenty-seven thousand small farms across Nepal. Due to attractive returns, small farmers are abandoning traditional crops like corn and replacing them with coffee, macadamia nuts, avocado, etc. Some corn remains, but only for personal use.

In summary, the coffee tour can be divided into seven parts; coffee cherry picking, pulping, hulling, roasting, grinding, dripping/tasting, and planting your own coffee seedling. During each leg of the tour, the coffee guides will provide you an informal lecture with accompanying infographic panels on different facets of coffee, usually related to task on hand.

The first stop was coffee nursery of Krisha Prasad Timalsani. The guide informed us about challenges of starting a coffee plantation. A major challenge as we were told is that there is no income for five years until you harvest the cherries. This is a significant risk and investment for small farmers. But the biggest problem for the coffee farming right now is the lack of water. Small coffee seedlings need lot of water. It was sad to hear farmer saying “Sansar Nai Sukyo Bhanhan” meaning “the whole earth is dry now”. One of the goals of the tour is to generate enough profit to be able to provide a water tank to the local farmers.

The excursion continued by picking fresh cherries in his farm. We were encouraged to taste (chew and spit out) the coffee cherries. It tasted sweet and very fibrous, obviously no coffee aroma. If you are lucky enough, which I was, you will see the pulping process by the machine as well. The pulped cherries are fermented in a sac from 24 to 48 hours, and dried to obtain green coffee beans with parchment.

To prevent wasting the picked cherries, guests were asked to make bead necklaces with them while being welcomed by freshly brewed lemon tea and cookies. While making necklaces, the guide talked about the origins of coffee from its accidental discovery by Kaldi in Ethiopia to its renaissance in Italy, and its trip to Nepal via Myanmar. We were then taken to plant a year-old coffee seedling. We were also given a white plank accompanied the seedling to write down our personal messages.

This was followed by an introduction to green beans and roasting. The dried coffee beans were hulled to remove its parchment cover. The beans were separated by hand to remove inferior and broken beans. While we were doing this, the guide informed us about the process of hulling and roasting.

The hulled green beans were roasted on a stovetop in a simple metal pot by us. The beans were constantly stirred with wooden stick broom to get even roasting. The roasted beans were quickly cooled by fanning in air. The goal here was to see how beans transform during the roasting process. First I smelled the fresh vegetable-like earthy smell coming out of the green beans, and then as it got roasted I could smell the familiar coffee flavor developing. We could roast according to our preference. I roasted to medium while the others did a dark roast. 

After roasting, the grinding and cupping took place in Kedar Adhikari’s farm. Grinding was done with manual hand grinders. We were told about the grind sizes for different types of coffee drinks, and introduced to various brewing methods and the basics on coffee tasting.

Our freshly roasted beans were brewed with classic hand drip method.  We could take the remaining beans we roasted with ourselves

This unique coffee tour is scheduled any day when Assa coffee tours has a minimum of two guests with knowledge coffee guides in coffee brown apparel.

The tour concluded with a meal under the shades of coffee trees. It was great to see the coffee farm, meet the farmers, talk to them, see the harvest, and get involved in the full process of coffee making. The coffee tour may have started with a cup of tea, but ended with complete appreciation for most of our favorite drink.

Most importantly this coffee tour revealed to me how much effort goes into making a cup of beverage that has become a daily routine I take for granted.

Win two VIP tickets to Carpenter’s Cook Off valued at $130  for just commenting on this post before the Tax day, April 15, 2013

                                                                      Photo: Sangesh Shrestha

Offering food during religious ceremonies is a common Hindu tradition. Food is first offered to the deities and then distributed as prasad to everyone.

Many poor people line outside temples to receive prasad—to eat, perhaps, their only meal of the day. For many years, the religious practice of distributing Prasad has enabled temples to function as food banks, serving millions of poor and homeless across the Indian subcontinent.

Prasad usually consists of vegetarian food, but exceptions do exist. The chances set of prasad including fruits or some sort of dessert is usually pretty high.  Yay…for the much-needed calories! On special occasions, such as holidays, birthdays, weekends, etc., people may put together prasads of a full simple meal consisting of bread/rice, vegetables, and lentils. In the absence of institutionalized food banks, for millennia, this tradition has served as the only source of distributing food to the poor, often the homeless.

Likewise, Carpenter’s Shelter has been providing food and acting as a homeless shelter for over twenty-five years in my current home in Northern Virginia. Carpenter’s Cook Off, now in its eleventh year, challenges local restaurants to a friendly duel. The purpose of the Cook Off is to create awareness about the shelter and raise funds to support its mission and activities.

This year’s Carpenter’s Cook Off will be held on Sunday, April 28, 2013 in Alexandria, Virginia. Learn more about the annual Carpenter’s Cook Off here.

You can also win two VIP tickets valued at $130 for just commenting on this post before the Tax day, April 15, 2013

“Organic ≠ Pesticide-free”

“Organic” doesn’t mean pesticide-free! Organic farmers are allowed to use commercially manufactured pesticides that are obtained from the natural sources that are not synthetically produced.

Natural does not mean safe. Snake venom is toxic and poison ivy is dangerous. Similarly, organic pesticides are not necessarily safe.

While synthetic chemical pesticides have been studied and regulated to safeguard human health, the negative impacts of naturally occurring chemicals in organic pesticides have been hardly examined. Natural chemicals are known to be carcinogen to rodents. Some organic pesticides have shown adverse effects. Here are some examples:

Copper sulfate has shown to cause liver damage in exposed vineyard workers in excess and kills earthworms since it remains in soil. Rotenone, derived from seeds and stems of plants such as the jicama, is suspected to induce Parkinson’s disease. Natural pyrethroids are chemicals component of many insecticides. They have similar adverse effects on human health as their synthetic counterparts. Yet, as these “natural” chemicals are not created to target a specific organism, they are often used at a higher dose.

Does organic also mean safer? The general perception that natural organic pesticides work with nature and are environmentally friendly is  not based on science. We  don’t look at the organic pesticides in the same way as they look at conventional pesticides. We don’t know how long organic pesticides persist in the environment or the full extent of their effects on our health.  And since these natural ingredients are not scrutinized or regulated, we certainly don’t know which is more harmful. The use of organic pesticides over synthetic ones may not reduce health or environmental risks.

I am not discouraging anyone from buying organic produce. It’s up to an individual to decide what to eat, be aware of that it may not be “organic” pesticide-free.

P.S. Besides organic pesticides, synthetic substances are allowed in organic crop production, provided that such substances don’t contaminate of crops, soil, or water. Some of them include;

Alcohols (ethanol, isopropanol) are used for disinfection, chlorine compounds (calcium hypochlorite, chlorine dioxide, sodium hypochlorite) are allowed for preharvest use as long as they do not exceed threshold level under the Safe Drinking Water Act, copper sulfate, hydrogen peroxide, ozone gas, peracetic acid; cleaning only, sodium carbonate peroxyhydrate, ammonium carbonate; as insect traps only, potassium silicate, boric acid, pheromones. vitamin D3, ferric phosphate, eracetic acid—for use to control fire blight bacteria, potassium bicarbonate, streptomycin and tetracycline; until October 21, 2014, humic acids, lignin sulfonate, magnesium sulfate, micronutrients (soluble boron products, sulfates, carbonates, oxides, or silicates of zinc, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, and cobalt), vitamins, B1 , C, and E, sulfurous acid, ethylene gas.

Freshly baked homemade cookies are not considered Indian. Commercial cookies, called locally biscuits, are everywhere in this sweet loving predominately vegetarian country. This post is about the local Indian cookies found in bustling footpaths of Indian capital, Delhi.

Although Indians (read women) spend a lifetime in kitchens, there are no warm freshly baked cookies. In the United States, baking is often an initiation to cooking, teaching kids that a self-cooked fresh mediocre cookies (meals) are always better than anything out of a wrapper. The absence of home baked cookies in Indian kitchens is due to lack of baking oven. Still today, even small convection ovens are considered a kitchen luxury, akin to an espresso machine in American kitchens. So, how do you bake without an oven?

Out of all places, I found freshly baked sugar cookies in a bakery on wheels on footpaths of Delhi. I found the foodcart in a haath bazaar, Indian version of weekly farmers’ market. This foodcart was similar to any vendor carts found across footpath of India, a wooden table on wheels without electricity or fancy equipment. On this cart, cookies were baked without an oven. The baker made a simple oven by putting charcoals on the bottom and the top of a big iron pot. The iron put surrounded by hot charcoal served as the oven for the cookies.

Cookies were simple, made with maida (Indian all-purpose flour), besan (graham flour), suji (semolina), sugar, ghee, and baking power.

Those freshly baked cookies were bit over baked but were as delicious as any warm cookies. Most importantly, it was fun to watch the baking process. It reminded me of an old cliché; where there’s a will, there’s a way. Perhaps, I don’t need that expensive espresso machine to make a perfect cup of latte.

So what was the difference? Was it simply my mom’s touch that made cauliflower so delicious?

Cauliflower sautéed with potatoes. Kauli, was my favorite vegetable growing up in Nepal. It’s basically a North Indian version of gobi (cauliflower) aloo (potatoes).

The recipe is easy. Stir  fry cut potatoes in oil with turmeric and cumin powder, maybe add a stick of cinnamon to add savory flavors.Add cauliflower florets and leave it until cooked. I tried to recreate my mom’s Kauli in the United States for many years without much success. Getting the spices right was easy. Just use what mom packed. But the texture and flavor were always off. The floret came out overcooked mushy or under-cooked crunchy, and always very watery.

Some people thought cauliflower needed a lot of oil, but my mom never put too much oil.  Others believed the cultivar of cauliflower was different. I tried different cauliflowers from many grocers including ethnic stores, farms – but they didn’t really bring me closer to my mom’s Kauli. Many other hypothesis included difference in cooking utensils, cooking on gas stovetop instead of electric, types of salt used, etc.

Just before hurricane Sandy, I purchased a big beautiful crown of a cauliflower from a local farmers market. But even with my mom giving me directions on Skype, I failed to perfect her recipe. Half of the head was still unused. During that weekend, I lost power and cauliflower stayed outside instead of the cool vegetable chest inside my refrigerator. When the power came back on, I cooked it and surprisingly it tasted closer to my mom’s Kauli.

The difference in cauliflower was not the cooking methods, but how it cauliflowers are stored and sold. In Nepal and India, vegetable vendors don’t use refrigeration. As a result cauliflowers stay outside, slowly evaporating excessive moisture. Loss of moisture may make cauliflower pale, but it concentrate the flavors and makes it less watery.

Lesson learned. I can cook my mom’s cauliflower; I just need to let mother nature do her job sometimes.

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Oscar Wilde said, “Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.” I rarely make New Year’s resolutions. When I do, I end up taking the cliché path most related to shedding off “extra” pounds.

This year, I am not making any ambitious New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I am choosing to make a simple list of things I want to do. Here is top five of my culinary list for 2013.

1. Make perfect heart-shaped or leaf-shaped lattes:
Good cup of latte has a perfect balance of flavor and texture. The perfect cup of latte with a pattern on its head is not just pretty to look at but calls for a precise balance of control, timing, and technique. The process needs lot of practice, patience, and precision.

2. Host a make-your-own-momo party:
If you know me, you know that I am obsessed with momos (the best version of dumplings). I have been flirting with the idea of hosting a make-your-own-momo party for a long time now.

The guests would have a choice of ingredients; meat, vegetable fillings (chopped onions, shredded cabbage, chopped mushrooms, tomatoes, etc.), and condiments (garam masala, ghee, peppers, cilantro, green peppers, salt, etc.). You make your own filling from the ingredients. Then wrap them up in dumpling sheets and steam up the momos. You could share a few momos or trade a few.

3. Use KitchenAid Stand mixer:

This product is one of the most iconic wedding gifts. I don’t recall why I bought this Stand mixer (one of those impulse purchases). Since its purchase, I have rarely used it. I plan to make at least one thing every month using this mixture in 2013 or resale it.

4. Shuck oysters:
Fresh raw oysters with mignonette sauce is as simple as a dish goes. In 2013, I plan to shuck them at home (without any injuries I hope).

5. Make one homemade bitters:
I am getting more into bitters, the herbal flavored alcoholic essence for cocktails. This year, I plan to make at least one homemade bitters. Hopefully it won’t be a bitter experience.

Happy New Year!

The Metro Cooking show, recently concluded in Washington DC, is a consumer-focused trade show consisting specialty food sellers, celebrity cooking demos, tastings, and workshops.

In a way, a trade show is an extension of the ever expanding foodie culture that has taken over our entertainment and reading materials. Yet, the uniqueness of a trade show is that it can be more than informational and entertaining.  Consumers are able to walk through the booths, interact with the vendors and others with similar interests, and get direct access to food-smell, taste, and take home food. It is a more interactive and intimate experience than reading reviews, drooling over scrumptious cuisines in glossy magazines and TV, or tossing food items in your shopping cart (virtual and/or real). Another advantage is that you can get face time with the established food vendors and celebrity chefs about their food – always better than online or phone conversations.

Watching food shows, reading, eating, and instagraming meals inspires us to cook and eat better. However, inspiration does not always translate into action. Many of us often procrastinate cooking by eating-out or going for takeout meals.  It is “cooking” shows like these that bring us closer to our kitchen, and inspire us to bust out those frying pans and mixing bowls.