Episode 20: Apricot Girl Summer
We are thrilled to be back for the eleventieth season in our four-part series! Right now, it’s time to KICK OUT THE JAMS! We’ve got questions that are high in iron, and answers that are high in irony. And a Chef Detective that we’re hoping no one will have beef with, featuring advice from Samin's old cooking colleague Emily Su-Bowden.
Food Ideas Discussed in this Episode:
Boiled Peanuts!! We love ’em. If you are roadtripping in the South, by all means, stop and buy some when you see a sign by the side of the road.
Here’s a savory idea for too much rhubarb: Khoresh Rivas by Naz Deravian
And here’s a great guide to making rhubarb (or most any other kind of) jam: The River Cottage Preserves Handbook
In the Things To Do with Jam Department, we love the Hungarian Shortbread from Dorrie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia, which became the Bulgarian Shortbread in Baking at the 20th Century Cafe. In fact, we adore these shortbread so much that we wrote a devotional post on A Grain of Salt. From shortbread+jam recipes it's just a short jump to a delightful Italian Jam Crostata.
Also, please, please, please EAT THE JAM, HRISHI!! Life is for living, sheesh!
Lastly, we love jams, however, we don’t make Industrial Jams.
So many people want to watch Hrishi and Samin bicker that we had to add a second night in San Francisco to Samin’s tour. If you’d like to see her someplace else, here’s a link to the tour page.
Oh wait, there’s (always) more to say about jam. This tremendous book by Christine Ferber forever changed Samin’s jam making method and is absolutely worth reading if you’re into this sort of thing.
News Flash: Samin has just “discovered” an excellent movie called The Taste of Things, and highly recommends you all watch it immediately.
Apparently, some newsletter called Accept Cookies also recommended The Taste of Things last year and possibly made some sort of personal recommendation to Samin but she does not remember that and definitely “discovered” The Taste of Things just in time to tell you all about it. Phew!
A listener (who certainly has a baby by now) was looking for ways to get iron into his pregnant partner’s diet.
We like:
Andy Baraghani’s Ghormeh sabzi (you can leave out the lamb if you want)
Or Kenji Lopez-Alt’s Vegan Chili (if you want to skip meat)
If you are not fortunate enough to live near Go Get Em Tiger to get their Haldi Doodh and must make your own at home, Diaspora Co. offers this great blend.
Our guest Chef Detective, Emily Su-Bowden, likes this book that has a recipe for what she suspects is a caller’s mother’s version of Hóng Shāo Niú Ròu Miàn (recipe at the bottom of the article).
We are thrilled to be back for the eleventieth season in this four part series! Thanks for joining us again. And in case we were too subtle inserting it in the text above:
Here’s the pre-order link for Samin’s new book GOOD THINGS. Pre-orders can register for an online cooking class with Samin taking place on September 11th, so hurry up!
Here’s a link to Samin’s North American and UK Tour, also Hrishi will be there sometimes for the friendship and the aggravation.
Illustration by Mamie Rheingold