Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Quick recovery beams to your mother, James.
  

    
Yes, I hope that all goes well, and quickly.

(Oh, and BTW, the people I'm staying with are so impressed with what's
coming out of the cookbook that they're buying one.)
  

    
I've got the beef rendang simmering away. Having a real food processor
really helped with making the spice paste, although the dried turmeric
was still a challenge. I'd suggest not using it in the future.

One funny thing: I happened to be using two different types of coconut
milk, Chaokoh brand and Bangkok brand. The Chaokoh poured just fine,
but I had to take the top off of the Bangkok because it had separated.
There was a hard, thick layer of fat on the top, and relatively clear
liquid below.

Now I just hope that it cooks quickly enough.

I was thinking about something WRT the chicken rendang. The spice
paste required grinding the lemon grass, ginger, turmeric, and galangal
(plus other, easier stuff) to a paste. Assuming that an Indonesian
cook does not have one, how do they do it? 
  

    
Is there any reason, when working with that type of spice mix that is
going to be simmered in the coconut milk, not to just add enough of the
coconut milk to the mixture to make it blender-able?  I did mine that
way for the potatoes rendang and after a good quantity of coconut milk
(pre-reduced in the pan) it worked beautifully.
  

    
It would seem that you could do that for the beef rendang, but not for
the chicken. I did soak the turmeric in water for several hours, but
it only helped a little.

The beef rendang, BTW, was a raging success. Much better than anything
I've had in any US restaurant.
  

    
JUST got back home--and back online.

Mom is fine, relatively speaking. She had a heart attack (a first),
which is a big deal whenever, of course, but especially when you're 83!

When I get home tonight, I'll log back on.
  

    

Oh, my.  All healing and strength to her, and you be good to yourself too.
  

    
Mortars and pestles, usually made from rough-surfaced volcanic rock,
are the food processors of choice in Indonesia and Malaysia (less so in
ultra-modern Singapore). The cook adds, then grinds, firmer
ingredients--usually--like spices and lemongrass, then softer ones,
like shallots and chiles. Though making a spice paste by hand can be a
fun and earthy process, it's also quite a muscle-demanding and lengthy
one. It can take up to 20 minutes to get a paste to a nice, smooth
consistency--versus just a minute or two with a food processor. So....

As far as adding coconut milk goes: That's fine especially for pastes
that don't have to be sauteed. The only problem is they can become a
bit too oily/greasy if you add too much!

And speaking of coconut milk: That fatty cap of coconut milk on top is
a great sign (versus the variety that was completely mixed when you
opened it)--that means it doesn't have lots of artificial emulsifiers
in it, and the fat has naturally risen to the top (just like cream)
when the coconut milk became cool. Just stir it up to mix!
  

    
(Thank goodness, James, glad to hear it.)

One of the things I love about your book is that along with
descriptions of what good ingredients look like, you also give very
specific recommendations for brands of ingredients, like coconut milk. 
It seems like not too many writers do that.
  

    
James, glad to hear that your mom is doing better.

Thanks for the answer on the grinding. I figured that something like a
mortar and pestle were used; I saw them used in Bali for making a
fresh sambal. I still can imagine that it is lots of work.

I finally had a chance to post photos of the beef rendang:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/smashz/sets/72157603980517267/detail/>
  

    
Wow--that looks like some real, asli (genuine/native) rendang from
West Sumatra. Really great-looking stuff.

OK, here's a question: You've made that dish now, smash, basically the
way a cook in West Sumatra would cook it. And I'm sure it may have
been a little tricky the first go-round, but I wager after making it
two or three or four times you won't even think twice about it--even
the gathering of ingredients will be easy, now that you know where to
procure. Why can't SE Asian restaurants in the US cook this kind of
clean, direct, pure food? It's really not that hard to make, right?

Congratulations on a job well done.
  

    
Easy, and amazingly tasty.  

The parts that were trickiest for the home cook--sourcing ingredients,
and preparing the seasoning paste to an appropriate fineness of
grind--should be slam-dunk for a restaurant.  And the same prep of
seasoning paste could be used for whichever meat or vegetable on a
particular date, although the one tricky part would be the long
reduction, having to be ready a reasonable time after the diner sits
down and orders.
  

    
Yes, it will be easier in the future. Now that I know what to expect,
it's not really difficult (assuming that I have an adequate food
processor, which I did not for the last 2 weeks).

> Why can't SE Asian restaurants in the US cook this kind of
clean, direct, pure food?

First of all, it takes and understanding and a commitment to use good
ingredients and take the time. But, I can see that it would not lend
itself to a restaurant. There is the chance for waste if the restaurant
planned wrong and made too much. I'd imagine that one could make a
batch, and stop it mid-way and refrigerate. Then it would not take long
to finish it off.
  

    
And yet somehow restaurants throughout SE Asia do it. And I don't know
about the meaty rendangs, but the potato one was great the second day,
so partial cooking and chilling might work if sanitation wasn't an issue.

James, what don't-miss food stops would you recommend for someone with
2-4 weeks to spend in the archipelago? Not just restaurants, but stuff
like shrimp paste manufacturing, cooking lessons, etc.
  

    
Ooh, I'd like to know that too.

James, switching gears a bit, can you tell us a little about your work
at Saveur? What's it like to edit a huge circ, respected magazine? Do
you have mostly staff writers, or is a lot of it outsourced to regular
freelancers? How has the mag changed under your direction, as opposed
to Coleman's? Give us a sketch of your typical day. 
  

    
Yes, but re. the rendang taking long to cook (and maybe that's why
restaurants don't prepare real, hearty reditions of it): The thing is
it keeps well in the fridge for well over a week (and in the freezer,
of course, for longer). In fact, the food was allegedly designed by
West Sumatrans for long jungle treks. It could travel, it was thought,
for a few weeks without spoiling--it was their version of bacon.

I'll post a mini diary of my day at Saveur tomorrow....
  

    
OK, my day, yesterday.

At 9, for an hour, I had a phone call with Saveur's art director,
Dave, about a story for the May issue about a Vietnamese immigrant
family in Brooklyn. Due to some communication glitch, roughly half of
the photographs from the shoot two summers ago weren't accounted for,
so we tried to get to the bottom of the problem.

From 10:30 to 12:30 we had a staff edit meeting, fine-tuning the
June/July issue, which is dedicated, largely, to American road trips of
the culinary sort. The largest of the journeys is something that I
photographed and wrote last year: Todd, the food editor, and I traveled
from Chicago to New York and stopped off at a bunch of great,
old-timey restaurants that have been around for decades.

From 12:30 to 2 I met with the fabulous TV director/producer Irene
Wong (she has been resonsible, among many other shows, for the
"Everyday Food" show, Giada, and "My Country, My Kitchen," years ago on
the Food Network). We're talking about doing a Saveur show.

From to 2 to 4, I spoke again with the art director, Dave, about the
May issue, and watched as box after box came were stacked outside my
office: The boxes contained our library, which had been in storage for
months, awaiting completion of our new office space.

From 4 to 5, I had a conference call with the Asia Society about a
series of upcoming evenings I'm hosting there from April to November.

From 5 to 6 I sat in a stupor.

At 6 I tasted a beautiful array of foods being tested for the May
issue. The best was a tomato-y, lemon-y bulgar pilaf from Cyprus; I
took the leftovers home.

Do we use freelancers? Yes. Collectively we probably get about 25
pitches, from all around the world, every day!

Has the magazine's vision changed since I took over? Not at all.
Saveur's core mission--to celebrate food, that most beautiful
expression of humanity--is much more powerful than anything I could
inflict on it.
  

    

Did you find the photographs?
  

    
Well, sort of. It turns out that the photographer had unintentionally
edited out a giant sequence of images. It also turned out that, for
part of the shoot, it was too dark for the photographer to get decent
images--the protagonists arrived two hours late for what was supposed
to be a dusk shoot.
  

    

ai yi yi! Sounds like a frustrating turn of events. Is this, like, a typical
work day for you, James?
  

    
Completely typical.
  

    
Not sure if you missed my last post, but I'll ask again. No worries if you'd
prefer not to address it.

What don't-miss food stops would you recommend for someone with
 2-4 weeks to spend in the archipelago? Not just restaurants, but stuff
 like shrimp paste manufacturing, cooking lessons, etc.
  

    
When I was shopping at 99 Ranch, I saw frozen coconut milk. Is there
any dis/advantage to using that?
  

    
Sorry, I did miss that post.

Don't-miss food stops: 

Penang, Malaysia: For SE Asia's best street food, plus (possible,
though  I am not certain) cooking lessons

Singapore: Definitely cooking classes here, though I can't recommend
any specific ones

Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia: Home to what is arguably Indonesia's
best food

Central Java, Indonesia: Including Yogyakarta, Malang, and Solo (and
countless villages in between), great food and sights

Bali: Because in spite of all the mega hotels and foreign tourists it
really is magical


Regarding coconut milk: The frozen variety tends to be of very good
quality--I highly recommend it.
  

    

mmm... coconut milk...

I have lovely chunk of butternut squash in my fridge, along with a couple of
chicken breasts and some bok choy, plus a can of coconut milk in the
cupboard. I'm seeing a Thai-ish chicken/pumpkin curry on the menu for this
evening. Thanks for the inspiration, James!