Weekends have always been designated cooking days for me. Why? That’s when the boyfriend comes home to crash at my pad after a night of hard tech support labor, and well, it’s the only time throughout the week I get to relish learning how to cook a new dish. For some reason, I decided that it would be a good time to make dinner extra special. (It was also a good excuse to finally bring out the foot-long and six-inch-wide fish fillets I stocked up for Holy Week to good use.)
To add to that, I wanted to introduce my boyfriend to a style of rice I enjoyed as a child with my dad. As a sitar teacher, he took the family and I once to an eclectic concert for the benefit of an Eastern Philosophy institution. I can’t recall anymore if he was one of the acts, but what I do remember singing along to a lively Hare Krishna Hare Rama. (You can just imagine how amazingly fan-tas-tic this all was to an eight year old.) By Intermission, each member of the audience was handed a styrofoam pack containing a full vegetarian meal: soy meat a la barbecue, sauteed vegetables, rice, and Laddu. each entree was pretty much a source of fascination for me, but the rice was especially familiar: it was slightly buttery to the taste, and was mixed in with assorted nuts. My mother successfully duplicated the dish when we arrived home, and usually served it for my dad’s birthday. I wanted to see now how well I could bring it back; call it reminiscing.
