This is what happens when you’re out of town for a few weeks and aren’t able to post your regular content. Last week, in lieu of the usual Wednesday Twin Cities restaurant report, I posted the second edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation. This week, I have for you something else entirely: a gift guide for the holidays. Every idiot on the internet writes one so why not me as well? You’re welcome. Because I am a person of great integrity, I am only listing things that I purchased with my own money this year and used frequently, and which which genuinely improved my life. Let’s face it, your life can use improvement too. Because I also a person of compromised integrity, some of the links…
This is what happens when you’re out of town for a few weeks and aren’t able to post your regular content. Last week, in lieu of the usual Wednesday Twin Cities restaurant report, I posted the second edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation. This week, I have for you something else entirely: a gift guide for the holidays. Every idiot on the internet writes one so why not me as well? You’re welcome. Because I am a person of great integrity, I am only listing things that I purchased with my own money this year and used frequently, and which which genuinely improved my life. Let’s face it, your life can use improvement too. Because I also a person of compromised integrity, some of the links here go to Amazon (because that is where those things are available). If you can find them elsewhere, by all means buy them there. But if you do follow the Amazon links and purchase from them, please know that I will get a tiny cut. And if you don’t like these things after you buy them, then don’t tell me about it.
Cookbooks
I was asked to blurb this cookbook by the mother and son duo of Jyoti and Auyon Mukharji and here’s what I had to say: “Heartland Masala, which has its origins in the kitchen of a family from the borderlands between Punjab, Bengal and Kansas, is the best introduction to Indian cooking that I have read in a while; both emerging from the Mukharji family’s background and not bounded by it. The recipes, which represent many different regions of India, come steeped in the flexible ethos of Indian home cooking and with clear instructions that will help even the most nervous cook adapt to it. The brief essays and notes on Indian food history and culture sprinkled throughout the book place the recipes in broader contexts. Whether explaining how to make ghee or explicating the many steps of a rezala or dispelling myths around masala chai, the writing is always engaging and the book a true pleasure to read. I will be cooking from it and suggest you should too.”
Maryam Jillani’s first cookbook, on the other hand, is not a family cookbook. Instead it provides an extensive survey of Pakistani cooking. Divided into sections for the different regions of the country and drawing on Jillani’s extensive travel and research for the book, Pakistan is a fantastic introduction to the breadth of the foodways of a country which, if they register on the American foodie consciousness at all, usually do so only for meat-centric street foods of a couple of major cities. Some of that food is in the book as well but so is a lot of other stuff that will expand your understanding not just of Pakistani food but of Pakistan itself. I taught this book in the cookbook unit of the last version of my Food Writing class at the college and it’s safe to say it will remain on the syllabus for a good while.
**Non Food Books **
Jayant Kaikini is a Kannada language writer who until recently lived in Bombay/Mumbai and his stories about the city are some of the very best stories I’ve read—and I don’t just mean among about Bombay or cities but stories full stop. Tejaswini Niranjana’s translations are excellent. My favourite of the stories collected here may be “Opera House” but there isn’t a bad one in the bunch. Niranjana’s second volume of translations of Kaikini’s stories, Mithun Number Two, is also excellent but I’m not sure if it’s available in the US. Do look for it.
Cognac: Dissecting the World’s Most Famous Brandy
Charles Neal is the author previously of the definitive—and quite massive—English language book on Calvados and a less massive book on Armagnac; and now he’s done a number on Cognac. It’s not a cheap book but if you like brandy you’ll spend a lot of time with it.
Mayukh Sen’s Tastemakers is another book I assign every time I teach my food writing class. Love, Queenie is not a food book, however, but a biography of Merle Oberon, a movie-star from Hollywood’s Golden Age who was, in fact, South Asian (a secret she kept for her entire life). Sen’s book covers both her life and the world she moved in without making her full self visible in it. Essential reading for anyone interested in cinema history.
Kitchen Things
I started baking bread in a big way towards the end of the last year and very quickly realized that I needed a better bread knife to cut those crusty loaves with. This knife came recommended from a few sites; I was skeptical but it is indeed extremely sharp and has held its sharpness very well. A literal game-changer in the home-baked loaf slicing game.
It took me a lot longer to break down and buy a new kitchen scale for the purpose of weighing ingredients for said baking of bread. I’m the kind of fool who can’t stop using crappy things while they still work and my old digital scale from IKEA still worked even if it didn’t work very well and was all but falling apart. This scale is much better: the weight display stay on for a good while as you’re measuring, the tare function is immediately responsive and moving from grams to ounces/pounds is very easy as well. All I could ask for in addition is an illuminated display but you can’t have everything—especially if you’re cheap.
Yes, this is the pasta maker every goddamned site recommends. What do you want from me—originality? Anyway, it’s surprisingly easy to use—though it’s much easier with a second set of hands helping. Our younger boy and I have made lasagna, fettuccine and pappardelle with it and they’ve all come out very well. And so far at least we have not succumbed to the gateway drug and purchased ever-more-expensive add-ons. Maybe you won’t be able to display the same restraint—well, that’s on you.
Booze-Adjacent
The other thing I’ve been doing a lot of this year is drinking mezcal. Well, I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m guzzling it by the gallon but I’ve been drinking more mezcal than whisky for sure. And when at a restaurant that offers a mezcal cocktail, I almost always get one. Mezcal pairs really well with tropical fruit and I got this bottle of passion fruit syrup for some experiments that have all been very successful so far. If you ask nicely I might post a recipe or two.
Travel Things
Okay, I don’t actually own the Anker power bank listed above; the one I own doesn’t seem to be available any longer. Anyway, it has completely transformed my travel life, doing away with all nervousness about running out of laptop, headphones or watch battery charge on long flights or phone battery charge while heading to a subway station at the end of the day in a foreign city. The one I’ve linked to seems to be the newer version and I’d guess it’s at least as good.
And this easy to use luggage weighing scale has also been a huge boon, taking the guesswork of out of checked and carry-on baggage weight before heading to the airport. If, like me, you often buy a lot of books when you travel—or other heavy things—you should have a good baggage scale. This is a good baggage scale: it’s accurate, it switches between pounds and kilograms easily and it also has a temperature gauge in it for some reason (for all those times when you want to see how warm/cool your room is after you’ve weighed your baggage).
This bag came bundled with a camera I purchased at the end of last year. I assumed that I would use it about as much as I’ve used any bag bundled with a camera purchased online—which is to say, not at all—but it turned out to be an excellent bag. The main compartment holds my Nikon Zf, an extra lens and my power bank; and the zippered compartments keep passports etc. safe. The bag itself is water-resistant but it also comes with an ingenious rain cover that’s easy to put on on the go (I know, I did it in Japan). And if you’re an ultra-productive person, it can also hold a tablet or small laptop in the side pocket.
Okay, that’s enough. If you want to purchase useful things for other people or yourself, you could do far worse than the above.