Big Bowl of Comfy

Dearest Gumdrop-

I know exactly what you mean about those moments when life is a too small sweater. Lately, I’ve been beset with a mad longing to run away and plant my toes in the warm earth and eat sun-rippened mangoes plucked straight from a tree (or shaken loose by a monkey as frequently happened when I was in Tanzania. But that’s another story).

I immediately set off for the exotic locales featured in my cookbooks, but
the curve ball of using a new ingredient made the right fit difficult. Too many culinary adventures came back to haunt me: the pop of cumin and nigella seeds during an Indian adventure one year, the harmonious balance of salty and sweet during a Thai idyll another. After several days of the most wonderful armchair journeys, I was beginning to despair.

And then you came to my rescue. Cruising through the New York Times to read about the evolution of the whoopie pie, I came across two curries I’d try. One, a South Indian Eggplant Curry , the other a Thai Curry Mee (or coconut chicken soup). The funny thing with each was that it was really the simplest ingredients I’d never used: eggplant and Thai curry powder.

With that decided, I began my favourite part of cooking: plotting the grocery trip. While I’m always smitten with black text on a crisp white sheet, nothing tells the miraculous transformative journey of food more than a simple grocery list. I’m sure everyone has his or her own order, but I like to organize my list according to my perambulation through the store, usually starting with produce and ending with dairy. Of course, these recipes called for special trips to Little India and the far eastern edge of the city. Even better.

With the list in order and baggage packed on Thursday (the IE and I were headed to the cottage for the weekend), I set off to get through Friday. It didn’t cooperate at all and we wound up leaving the city much later than intended. It meant I had to sacrifice one of my curry shops so we could arrive at the cottage before our guests.

I suppose now is the right time to reveal that I’ve never cooked eggplant before for one simple reason: I hate its spongy texture. I’d only thought to make the eggplant curry because the new hubby likes it. It was one of those bountiful newlywed gestures that you regret as soon as you've made it. So needless to say, we scrapped our journey to Little India (but not before I vowed to get there soon for the intimidating and beguiling asafetida, the one ingredient I have truly never tried) and headed out to the most wonderful place, Sheung Thai Supermarket.

We walked straight into the kind of multicultural place that makes me love Toronto so much. While ostensibly Thai, Caribbean, Chinese and South Asian people and ingredients filled the aisles. Having loaded my cart with curry leaves and water chestnuts, red coconut cake and sambal, I regretfully left this culinary wonderland that was home to half the world and was also half the price of my local market!

At the end of a crisp spring day spent traipsing through the woods and sipping cocktails while we read, we huddled around the wood fire and enjoyed a fresh, delicious curry soup that was both easy to prepare and easy to eat. This was the kind of simple curry bursting with vibrant flavour. It also had a lovely spring-like hue since I threw in a few more vegetables that messed with its authenticity, but definitely satisfied our daily servings of vegetables. It's food that reaches deep down into your soul and gives it a big bear hug. Or as the IE put it, "this is really good." My only note (as someone who could drink a good curry sauce and skip the rice completely) is don’t save the left-over noodles and soup in the same bowl. Those selfish, thirsty noodles absorb all the creamy broth, making tomorrow's lunch curried noodles not curry soup.

As a sidebar, the whoopie pies were out of this world. They’re homely looking things, the plain jane cousin of adorable cupcake, so I’d be tempted to give them a bit of a make-over next time around – maybe pipe the frosting so it has a prettier edge or add a chocolate drizzle, but who wouldn't fall in love with the burgers of the cake world?

All in all, the weekend was the culinary equivalent of a big comfy sweater. Just what I needed.

Xo
Pickle

PS: apologies for the state of the pictures, but I forgot the camera and had to use my blackberry