A couple of friends from abroad came in impromptu. They were dying to eat something ‘spicy’. Made some of my favourite Hyderabadi Kheema.

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HYDERABADI KHEEMA Serves 4
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INGREDIENTS
500gms lamb mince
3 medium onions, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped fine
3 green chillies chopped fine
1/2 cup yoghurt
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp ginger paste / 1 inch piece chopped fine
1 tsp cummin seeds
1 tbsp whole garam masala
1 tbsp red chilly powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
2 eggs, boiled
2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped
Salt to taste
Oil

PREPARATION
Mix together the mince, yoghurt, salt turmeric powder and garlic paste, and set aside to marinate for at least 1 hour, more if possible.

Meanwhile heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a skillet. Add the cummin seeds and let them splutter. Add the garam masala and let it crackle.

Add the onions and saute.

When they turn golden brown in colour, add the ginger, chillies, red chilli powder and coriander powder. Cook for a minute and then add the tomato. Keep cooking on a medium heat, stirring occasionally till the oil separates.

Add the marinated lamb mince mixture. Cook on a medium heat till the mince is done.

Cut the boiled eggs into quarters and garnish. Serve steaming hot with warm buttered pav.

Our bodies are made for the environment they lived in for most of human history, where food was scarce, populations were small, and people had to fight to stay fed and warm. We store food really, really well… that’s how our genes got naturally selected above those of others of our ancestors who didn’t make it through periodic food shortages so well.

A Foodie’s Rant
Okay, I just can’t take it anymore: people who insist on loudly analyzing their meal, snack, or whatever they’re dining on and sharing their information with people who didn’t ask to hear it. It’s tacky.
I think Americans as a culture have a hard time with the concepts of balance and variety in food. And I see a lot more extremes in my culture (anorexia and obesity) than I’ve ever seen in Europe, for example. Why is that? I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I have some guesses.
I recently heard a kid analyzing the protein content of a snack and proclaiming it a “bad” snack. Read more…

Have we all been lied to about how much food we need to live healthy?
One of my favorite people, Dr. David Katz, whom I saw speak at my 10th college reunion, gives a great talk about how modern Western folk are like polar bears in a dessert: we’re not designed for our environment! Our bodies are made for the environment they lived in for most of human history, where food was scarce, populations were small, and people had to fight to stay fed and warm. We store food really, really well… that’s how our genes got naturally selected above those of others of our ancestors who didn’t make it through periodic food shortages so well. If you’re a woman who tends towards gaining weight like me, then you’re really at the top of the evolutionary chain! Back before CR, I had stored enough body fat from eating nachos and drinking margaritas that I was ready to carry triplets through a famine.
Alas, that’s not helpful in our current environment. Food is not scarce, but the food industry has figured out how to manipulate our biological programming to get us to buy buy buy,… Read more…

Basic Stir-fry
Stir fry is one of the easiest and most flexible foods to make. It’s really hard to ruin; you just put in random amounts of various vegetables, add a protein of some sort if desired (meat, cooked or canned beans, chickpeas, or tofu work well), fry a bit, and serve. Read more…

Not strictly speaking food, but an eye opener nevertheless…

Collapse of ecosystems likely if plunder continues – John Vidal, environment editor
Humans are living well beyond their ecological means and are now exhausting natural resources at an unprecedented rate. In so doing, says WWF’s bi-annual report, we are threatening ourselves and all other species with extinction.
New calculations on the decline in the planet’s capacity to provide food, fibre and timber, and absorb carbon dioxide, suggest we are using 25% more resources than are renewed naturally in a year. Read more…

One place where you’d expect not to die of your food is a hospital …

Help! came across this headline that really made me balk.
One place where you’d expect not to die of your food, is a hospital (even if you complain like crazy about the taste. And I suspect that’s another one of the stereotypes we’re imbedded with, like the airline-food-is-lousy one).

Hospital meals carry more fat ‘than fast food’
PUBLIC hospitals serve meals that contain more fat, salt and calories than McDonald’s burgers.
The Sunday Times obtained a Royal Perth Hospital hot meal and sent it to a laboratory for testing.
The analysis revealed that the chicken and vegetable dinner had more fat, sodium and energy than a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder, and nearly as much as a burger and french fries combined. Read more if you can bear it.

This has become quite an area of interest to me, and I have been doing a lot of reading. Let me thrust it on you.

Nutrition program reaches parents, children …. “We teach the parents so they will teach their children,” she said.
She said one of the biggest factors impacting families’ nutrition today is the amount of fast food we eat.
“It is high in fat and low in nutrition,” Wright said, adding many young adults grew up on fast food and never really learned how to cook. “I tell them it is cheaper and healthier to cook at home.”
Wright pulls plastic food replicas out of her satchel. A bowl of vegetables, hamburger buns and meat are among the items. She uses her props to teach people about proper food portions.
“The hamburger bun is actually two portions,” she said. Wright said Americans tend to eat portions that are too big. Read more…

Not surprising then that moms will try and skuttle any chances of kids eating healthy…

There’s no nicotine patch for chicken nuggets – Sarah Lyall
… In September, she and another mother — alarmed, they said, because their children were going hungry — began selling contraband hamburgers, fries and sandwiches to as many as 50 students a day, passing the food through the school gates. The mothers closed their business after they were vilified in the national news media as “meat pie mums.” Critchlow now feeds her children lunch at home. Read more…

Disney goes Healthy
Only in retrospect will we recognize the moment at which the American obesity epidemic reached its tipping point, when whole grains and veggies began to trump transfat and fructose. But this week’s announcement by the Walt Disney Co. that it will begin limiting calories, fat and sugar in food marketed to childen under the Disney brand pushes our tubby generation a little closer to that threshold. Read more…

No more Mystery Meat
Its a good idea because obesity and all that is a serious problem, Max said. He wasnt enticed, though, by the healthier choices on the hot food line like herb-roasted chicken and stir-fried veggies.
Neither were his table mates, who were grumbling about the new higher prices to $3 from $1.75 for a hot lunch and to $4.75 from $3.95 for a roast beef sandwich as well as the revamped menu… Read more…

In restaurants Crepes Suzette are made right at the table. Lumps of sugar are rubbed over oranges to absorb the essential oil in the skins, then cooked with butter and orange juice almost to a caramel. The crepes are dipped in the mixture to coat them on each side, then sprinkled with Cognac and flambéed. Made this way, however, only 3 or 4 crepes can be done at a time, so it is a less than ideal method for serving more people. Here’s my version of a recipe that more or less gets past that hurdle.

Days after having the Crepes Suzette at Arthur’s Theme, I found a recipe that looked like it would end on a happy note.
In restaurants Crepes Suzette are made right at the table. Lumps of sugar are rubbed over oranges to absorb the essential oil in the skins, then cooked with butter and orange juice almost to a caramel. The crepes are dipped in the mixture to coat them on each side, then sprinkled with Cognac and flambéed. Made this way, however, only 3 or 4 crepes can be done at a time, so it is a less than ideal method for serving more people. Here’s my version of a recipe that more or less gets past that hurdle.

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CREPES SUZETTE Serves 6
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INGREDIENTS
1 dozen plain crepes
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
Peel of 1 orange removed with a vegetable peeler
Juice of 1 orange

To Flambé
1/2 cup Cognac or brandy
1/4 cup Grand Marnier or homemade orange liqueur (see recipe below)

PREPARATION
Place the butter, sugar, and orange peel in the food processor and process until the orange peels are no longer visible and the whole mixture is a uniform orange color.

Add the orange juice slowly with the machine on so that the butter absorbs it.

Spread approximately 1 tablespoon of the orange butter on each crepe, and fold the crepes into quarters.

Butter a large ovenproof platter and sprinkle it with sugar. Arrange the stuffed crepes on it, overlapping slightly, but leave a space at the end of the platter where the sauce can accumulate.

Pre-heat your oven to the lowest setting.

Sprinkle the crepes with 2 tablespoons of sugar and place them under the broiler, approximately in the middle of the oven for about 5 minutes. The surface of the crepes will caramelize.

Now remove from the oven, and pour 1/2 Cup of Cognac or brandy and 1/4 cup Grand Marnier or homemade orange liqueur on the very hot crepes and ignite.

Bring the platter to the table, inclining it slightly so that the flaming juices gather in the space you left. Spoon up the liquid and pour it back, still flaming, onto the crepes. When the flame subsides, serve two crepes per person with some of the sauce.

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ORANGE BRANDY
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Peel 7 to 8 oranges with a vegetable peeler. Place the skin in a bottle and cover it with 3 cups of brandy. Add 2 tablespoons sugar. Shake the bottle a few times to dissolve the sugar. Then let it stand for approximately 3 weeks to 1 month and you will have a very good orange brandy.