Re-claiming Valentine's Day: The Adventure Begins

Olivia and I had the same idea for Valentine's Day this year: stay at home and cook. If Christmas has become overly commercialized then we need to invent new 'extreme' adjectives to describe the atmosphere on Valentine's Day. It sucks. Single men and women feel left out, lonely, or just apathetic. Coupled men feel tremendous pressure to conform to some inexplicit gift standards, and coupled women feel....well, I don't really know how they feel. But I imagine there's some pressure to be surprised and excited or extra-in-love or something. There's just more pressure than necessary all around, and I think everyone recognizes it. And in NY there's always a rush to make reservations ahead of time and to find the perfect romantic place. So it made me happy that Olivia also wanted nothing to do with it this year and we're taking advantage of the alone time to do something together that we both love.

(I couldn't resist a tiny bit a surprise, however, so I did sneak out of bed early and pick up a pretty little arrangement for the table. I told myself that the dinner would be lacking without it. And I'm a sucker for baloons.)

So the plan for today is to finally crack open a cookbook Olivia brought me from one of her Ohio business trips. After the impromptu extravaganza that the Momofuku cookbook brought about we thought we'd dive right into another one and make everything that looked good. Well, actually we're making everything that looked really great and could possibly be squeezed into one day. Everything looked good.

American Masala is the brainchild of Subir Saran and his years of making Indian-influenced American cuisine and American-influenced Indian cuisine for family and friends. The writing is not as snappy as the Momofuku cookbook, but the recipes are no less inspired. And every recipe comes with its own story, which is what I love in a cookbook. My favorite recipes in general are always ones that were tied to a special occasion.  When that happens I can often remember the exact smell and taste and often even the exact dialog at the time. Maybe I have a taste-based memory, but food really makes memories come alive, as does beer and wine and spirits.

In between Gabriella's christening and dinner with Luke and Linda we stopped at Kalustyan's on Curry Hill yesterday to pick up some of the more exotic ingredients. Try finding asefetida at Stop & Shop. As usual we had a great experience and found everything we needed, though nothing is ever as cheap as I expect it to be at that place. And I was happy to discover that they have expanded to the north by about 50%, so there is a lot more space for everything now, and less crowding.

Here's our entire oversized kitchen table full of ingredients for tonight's adventure. Whew. We're in for quite an evening.

The Menu:

Toasted-Cumin Guacamole
Shrimp Balchao Bruschetta
Pineapple/Mango/Grapefruit Salad with Chili-Lime Vinaigrette
Goan Shrimp Curry
Masala Fried Chicken
Doodh Walee Matar (Peas in a spiced cream sauce)
Pistachio-Cardamom Pound Cake with Meyer Lemon Icing