Flickr photo by Tatiana Gerus

A recent Los Angeles Times article, “Curry leaf tree, a touch of India in the backyard,” reminds me that my dad’s old office had a curry leaf tree growing just outside his window. From time to time, while he was working, he would see desis drive or walk up to his office building and step up to the elevated garden area to grab a bunch of the fragrant leaves to go. My grandma lived next to his office and she planted the tree many years ago. Of course she wasn’t the only one to do so in sunny southern California.

Rishi Kumar’s grandmother brought curry leaf seeds from India, and his mother planted them 18 years ago at her home in Diamond Bar. Now the curry leaf has filled out into a mini-grove of slender stalks, bushy with the pointed leaves essential to Indian cuisine.

…

After graduating from UC San Diego in computer science, Kumar came home to his parents’ house and started gardening seriously. He started a community-supported agriculture project, or CSA, called the Growing Home and Learning Center, based out of the 2,500-square-foot garden around the house. He put in a series of cinder-block terraces, heavily mulched with forest humus and horse stable bedding, and started planting. An Ayurvedic garden is out front, where the lawn used to be; in the back, plants reflect his family’s Punjab roots: holy basil, neem (a tree believed to have medicinal properties), Indian jasmine. (LAT)

For more information on the curry leaf tree read the rest of the article. It’s part of a Tuesday series called the Global Garden.

Now, I don’t begrudge my parents their position toward turkey. It’s a confounding bird for most immigrants, who are generally more comfortable with the bleats of a goat or a lamb, the squawks of the simple-minded chicken. The turkey was an enigma: a heavy, feathered bird with its “gobbledygook” mutterings, freakish red wattle and vast supply of dry, juiceless meat.     “Do the Amreekans realize it is dry?” ask my still perplexed relatives living in Pakistan. “Where is the masala? The taste? The juices? Why do they eat this bird?”  

What did you serve this Thanksgiving? Did you desi-fy your turkey? (Aarti Sequeira has a recipe for tandoori turkey here.) I grew up in a vegetarian household, so no turkey for me, but we did have pumpkin raita and cranberry chutney on the table as a nod to the holiday.

Khalsa, 29, has no experience in professional kitchens. About a month ago, he took a break from his job as a trucker to attend the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial; he hasn’t left yet. A previous gig as an inventory analyst with Coca-Cola, he says, gave him the skills to pinpoint problems on the spot. He works 16 to 17 hours a day and doesn’t suffer fools who dare bog down his operation.

  If you ask why Khalsa volunteers for this thankless work, he won’t invoke any slow-food ideals of shared meals and sharing knowledge about sustainability. Instead, he’ll invoke his religion, Sikhism. “I like to help people,” says the turbaned Khalsa, who embodies both authority and the collective. He’s the master of his kitchen and the servant of the hungry.  

Read more about Khalsa and Occupy DC and view photos and video of McPherson square at the Washington Post.

Photo of a kitchen at Occupy DC from http://www.flickr.com/photos/thisisbossi/6315806203/

Ask not what Sepia Mutiny can do for you; ask what you can do for Sepia Mutiny! The picture above is courtesy of tipster Ashish, who ran after a bus to take this picture for us. As he notes, it is an ad in Hindi, for McDonald’s. It was on a SamTrans bus in Menlo Park this summer. I intended to put it up back when he originally sent it, because did I mention he ran after a bus for us? and also the picture is cool? but now it is cold and grey and I am glad to have just recalled this and to be posting it now, because among other things it is a nice reminder of summer and running and outdoor things. (I hope those of you on the East Coast have power and are warm and safe.)

Anyway. Hindi on the side of a bus in America, for the quintessential American fast food chain, which is now selling various South Asianish foodstuffs, by which I mean mangoes and coconuts are involved. If you have tasted any of these foodstuffs, please revert.

UPDATE: from the crowdsourcing on my FB wall—since I am not a Hindi speaker—this ad references pineapple-mango smoothies made from real fruit (the word “real” didn’t make it into the photo, so that part’s an educated guess). The ad further informs us that these smoothies are cooler than the month of August in San Francisco. Thanks to Aruni, Salil, Oindrila, Sucheta, Sumita, Zain! Oindrila offers this review of the smoothie, which she had several times this summer: “It was too much pineapple and not enough mango imo. I like my exotic cliched fruit.”

Family members would marvel (and sometimes take offense) that I wasn’t finishing up my meal with yogurt, mixing it up with rice or using it to temper the spicy foods or pickles. Imagine a grandma’s Ayurvedic admonitions in place of a Robert Mitchum voiceover and a symphony of joyful slurping instead of Copland’s “Hoe-down” and you’ll have an idea of what the Yogurt, It’s What You Eat After Dinner experience was like. Some of the reasons why I was supposed to eat it:

1. It tastes good. They felt sorry for me that I was missing out on so much tart-y goodness.
2. It had calcium and protein, both of which I needed to grow up strong and healthy.
3. Something to do with eating compatible “hot” and “cold” foods. I know it has less to do with food temps than other characteristics, but don’t know enough.

Perhaps you can think of more reasons to add to the pro-yogurt chorus. A recent Wall Street Journal article suggests another possibility—that maybe probiotic bacteria, the microorganisms typically found in yogurt and dairy products and known to have benefits in the gut, also have positive effects on the brain, reducing psychological distress and increasing confidence. Tests with mice found that mice given Lactobacillus rhamnosus behaved more confidently and with less anxiety and had a more positive mood than those not given the bacteria. Read the article at the Journal and the Economist for more information about this research.

I can’t say that I like yogurt as much as one company seems to think women would (nor can I figure out what “zen wrapped in karma” might mean), but nowadays I do like yogurt very much, in pretty much all of its forms—plain, homemade, Greek, frozen, non-fat, 2%, full-fat, etc. Not sure how or when this change in attitude happened, but surely it must have involved a taste of perugu vada.

Possibly interesting: Why Indians and Europeans Tolerate Milk  

Image: Flickr photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnystiletto/

Behind that stream of steaming hot coffee pouring into your cup is a waste stream of coffee grounds. Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez of Back to the Roots (BTTR) view the huge amounts of coffee grounds waste coming out of coffee shops as a huge potential for urban mushroom farming. The UC Berkeley students were in their final semester with corporate job offers in hand when they heard about growing gourmet mushrooms from coffee grounds and independently reached out to their professor for more information. (Read a Q&A with Arora after the jump.)

The professor put them in touch and they got to growing their business idea. They asked Peet’s Coffee for used coffee grounds and set up ten test buckets in Velez’s fraternity kitchen to try out mushroom farming. Only one bucket grew a crop of mushrooms.

They took the single success to a famous Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, to get those mushrooms checked out–they were sautéed and deemed good. (If you’re wondering, mushrooms grown in coffee grounds do not pick up a coffee kick to their flavor.) The two budding entrepreneurs took the same bucket to Whole Foods and caught the interest of store employees. Their idea also caught the interest of their university, which awarded them a $5K social innovation grant.

What’s happened since those early days is remarkable. In six months, the mushroom growing venture went from having product distributed in one Whole Foods to national distribution. Last year Planet Green reported that BTTR became “the sole oyster mushroom supplier to the entire North California region of Whole Foods while transforming over 10,000 pounds of coffee ground waste per week from Peet’s Coffee.”

Peet’s, which sold BTTR’s mushroom growing kits in its shops, proudly proclaims that it is the primary source of BTTR’s coffee grounds, and plans to give them 1 million pounds of grounds to reuse this year. Whole Foods also sells the grow kits and provided the venture with a low-interest loan for local producers.

But that’s not all. When these two urban mushroom farmers put up an ad on Craigslist to get rid of their spent coffee grounds with broken mushroom roots, they discovered a market for their own waste stream. The mushrooms enrich the grounds as they grow leaving behind a desirable alternative to chemical fertilizer. It sells as a premium soil amendment.

The White House recently highlighted BTTR as a “Champion of Change” for its sustainable business model. Keep reading to find out more about what Nikhil Arora has to say about growing and eating mushrooms.

As a recent college grad, why did you give up the security of a post-college job offer to become an urban mushroom farmer? Did you ever have any doubts about your choice?

After Alex and I first came across this idea in a class, it was a very step-by-step process our last semester. We brainstormed, ended up growing one test bucket of mushrooms on coffee grounds, had a local restaurant try them and like them, got some initial interest from WF [Whole Foods], a $5k grant from our [university's] Chancellor–and by that time, with all that support building up from our community we looked at each other sand said “we have got to do this!”

We started seeing the potential for turning waste into food and local jobs and wanted to run with it. The first months were some of the toughest, and there were many days where we would look at each other, knee-deep in coffee grounds, and ask “what are we doing??”–but the friendship that Alex and I developed early on was crucial to carrying us through those early tough days.

The grow kits look way more fun than the Chia Pet I got as a kid, with the major benefit of producing edible mushrooms. Are the kits primarily for educational/entertainment value? Or can the home kits also compete against other mushrooms sold in stores when it comes to taste and price?

The kits are definitely a ton of fun (grow up to 1.5 in as little as 10 days) …by far the most fast growing food out there! However, the nice thing is they also compare on price–and that’s something we really work for because we know for this grow-your-own movement to really take off, it can’t just be a one-off fad/one-time purchase. These mushrooms go for around $12 lbs in many stores, so there’s that price parity right away, but the neat thing is that we actually sell replacement bags & offer a monthly mushroom club online–so those who really want to grow their own food can continue to do so (keep the box/mister) and save money!

What’s your favorite dish featuring mushrooms? Do you eat more of them today than before you started urban mushroom farming?

My favorite dish has to be the mushroom tacos our warehouse manager Osvaldo cooks up–they are absolutely delicious! Definitely eating a lot more mushrooms now than before–have a much greater appreciation for them!  

What are three things that people can do to build an innovative and sustainable business idea into a successful reality?

1) Focus–especially early on, pick one thing (a product, a service, etc) and work endlessly to become the very best at that one thing, however niche. We learned that lesson the hard-way early on when we were pursuing a handful of different products/services related to this concept, and not focusing on entirety on one..it almost put us out of business.

2) Build partnerships–it takes a village to build a company. Do not underestimate the power of partnerships–find unique partners who can take your brand to the next level, find creative ways to offer them value-add as well from supporting you so they become fully invested in your future, and leverage their networks and communities. Always look to make every partnership a two-way street so you grow together!

3) It’s all about the team! No matter how great an idea is, you cannot build a successful company without an all-star team. It’s not the product or idea that has helped grow Back to the Roots–but an unbelievable team (family, more so!) that all believes in our mission & vision and is willing to work hard & innovate to achieve our goals.

Have you seen the Gordon Ramsay-produced cooking show that takes 100 amateur and home chefs and attempts to turn one into a…MasterChef? I watched a few episodes recently and thanks to comments here and stories from the news tab, realized that Chef Suzy must be [Suzy Singh](http://www.suzysingh.com/), a neural engineer from Chicago. Singh, who participated in a brief Q&A posted below, made it into the 100 with a [signature dish](http://www.fox.com/masterchef/recipes/signature-dish/recipe-16) of Tandoori Cod en Papillote with Chai- and Saffron-infused Couscous, and she’s still a contender for the title of MasterChef on the show’s second US season now that the pool of 100 chefs has been whittled down to fewer than 10.

Singh is interesting to watch on MasterChef because she has skills, brings a real enthusiasm for cooking, and wears her heart on her sleeve, leaving no doubt as to how she’s feeling about her chances, her competition or the judges’ comments at any moment. Her style is also on display in videos which introduce viewers to the world’s largest holy kitchen at the Golden Temple and Kesar Da Dhaba in Amristar, Punjab.

Singh’s cooking inspirations include the Punjabi food that she grew up eating and cooking. It seems her dad is also a special inspiration: “My dad has this passion for cooking and has taught me from the young age of 4 to have integrity in the kitchen by respecting the ingredient, keeping the kitchen clean, and cooking from the heart.” (FOX)

In the Q&A that she did for Sepia Mutiny Singh mentions that she hopes to have her own TV show. Read on to find out more about her.

I found that I was the happiest in the kitchen. The opportunity to audition presented itself to me in December and it was a very organic process. One of my ultimate goals in life is to have a cooking show of my own, so doing a reality TV show seemed like a natural step to me.  Also who better to learn from than Gordon Ramsey?  He is a true delight and it was an honor learning technique from him.

What has been your favorite challenge so far on MasterChef? Why?

My favorite challenge thus far was definitely the French challenge! French cuisine is the foundation for culinary technique! It was a great way to show off some of my culinary skills. I cooked up a duo of tarts for this challenge; a lemon curd tart in a pate Sucre with a meringue and ganache tart with raspberry and meringue also in a pate Sucre.  Just thinking about it makes me want to go in the kitchen, heat up my oven, and invite friends over for a treat!

Where do you go when you want to eat out? What do you order?

My favorite restaurant is Schwa in Wicker Park. It serves NINE divine courses of a molecular gastronomy meal and it’s BYOB! Even better, the menu changes seasonally so it’s always different, but always delicious!

What are your hopes and dreams for your career after MasterChef? Will you ever open a restaurant?

My dream is have my own cooking show that teaches people how to cook. I believe that eventually I will have my own restaurant but before actually opening one, I would like a television show, book deal, and create culinary appliances that use the theme “smart cooking.”

(Photo by ukanda)

Given the recent praise and admiration expressed for the humble dish known as upma following its Top Chef Masters appearance (Three cheers to upma, Upma still a hot hit, Up, Up Upma!, One upma-nship), you may want to ward off the evil eye the next time you have some, maybe with a pinch of salt or chili powder. Dressed up with chicken stock, mushrooms, coconut milk and kokum by Cardoz, his upma (picture, recipe) caught the attention of the show’s judging panel. Cardoz made the dish to evoke one of his earliest memories of food; the second dish reflected the moment that inspired him to become a chef, and the third was chosen by a randomly assigned judge (James Oseland) to reflect the dish that made the judge decide to pursue the career of a food critic.

Critic Ruth Reichl was very taken with Cardoz’s upma. “The more attention you give it, more and more flavors start ricocheting around in your mouth.” She declared it brave to do the up-ma and described it as really taking a chance to put out a dish that simple. That simplicity made Gael Greene doubtful. “I  don’t know about this,” she said, suggesting that it was too simple. James Oseland really liked Floyd’s upma and praised the food. “He took this utterly plain Indian home dish yet made it elegant.” See how they decided to vote for Cardoz.

Cardoz, who celebrated his win by nursing a champagne hangover and heading over to Dosa Hutt in Queens, will be opening North End American Grill in Battery Park, NY. His win raised $100,000 for the Young Scientists Cancer Research Fund in honor of his dad, who died from cancer. He joins two other chefs who have won the title of Top Chef Master–Rick Bayless, known for his Mexican cuisine, and Marcus Samuelsson, whose cooking includes influences from Swedish, Japanese and African cuisines.

Clips: Contestants instruct their initially unidentified partners on how to cook their dish. Cardoz is paired with his sister, though he does not realize it is her.

Suvir Saran, eliminated earlier in the series after taking a stand on vegetarianism, talks about his elimination and his fun experiences on the show.

Clearly what resonated the most with my California Desi population map wasn’t the population. It was the fact that I said, “I’d love to do a Cali road trip based on this map, and hit up the Indian restaurants along the way.” Y’all a bunch of foodies, aren’t you?

So let’s do this again, crowdsource style. This time the google map lists those to-die-for hole-in-the-wall dhabas in the middle of nowhere. I’ve already taken the liberty to map the ones listed in the previous comment thread. Do you have a Desi food place that is a must hit up place on a “kao, kao, kao” summer road trip? Do you have an interesting picture at one of these places? Please list it in the comments and I’ll drop it into the map as soon as possible. and it doesn’t have to be Cali centered. I only ask that you make recs for food that is good, places obscure and with a great story.

Photo credit: Me, taken somewhere off the I-40 in between Arizona and California on my ultimate Taqwacore roadtrip in ’09.

Recently the President released his long-form birth certificate to show everyone, perhaps especially those birthers gone berserk, that he’s an American born in America who belongs in the White House. On a day-to-day basis, desis in the U.S. are not being asked to pull out their long-forms (not yet anyway), but are there other ways in which we’re made to feel that we have to prove we belong, that we’re American? New research from psychologists seems to address this question with a particular focus on the food choices of immigrant groups–”Fitting In but Getting Fat: Identity Threat and Dietary Choices among U.S. Immigrant Groups.”

Psychologists show that it’s not simply the abundance of high-calorie American junk food that causes weight gain. Instead, members of U.S. immigrant groups choose typical American dishes as a way to show that they belong and to prove their American-ness.

“People who feel like they need to prove they belong in a culture will change their habits in an attempt to fit in,” said Sapna Cheryan, corresponding author and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington. “If immigrants and their children choose unhealthy American foods over healthier traditional foods across their lives, this process of fitting in could lead to poorer health,” she said.

The results are published in the June issue of Psychological Science.

Public health studies show that diets of immigrants, including those from Asia, Africa and Central and South America worsen the longer they stay in the United States. (press release)

Surveying Asian-American and white college students to learn more about their embarrassing food memories, the researchers found 68% of Asian-American respondents recalled food-related insecurities around white peers while growing up, compared to only 27% of white respondents. Examples included awkwardness about using chopsticks, eating animal parts like fish eyes, chicken feet, etc.

The research aimed to measure whether the threat of not being identified as American had an effect on food preferences by asking the students “Do you speak English?” before starting the experiment. 

Because the sampled American dishes tended to be fattier, threatened participants ended up consuming an extra 182 calories, 12 grams of fat and seven grams of saturated fat – roughly equivalent to a four-piece order of McDonald’s chicken nuggets – than participants who were not asked if they were American.

I wonder which of my food preferences developed while I was growing up might be related to trying to fit in or “be American.” My mom remembers me being introduced to American-style food when I was in preschool and says that I asked at home for foods like “fruit cop-tail” after eating them there. I remember bugging our parents at the grocery store for things like Kraft’s mac & cheese in a box, which is its own kind of embarrassing food memory now that I know more about how it stacks up nutritionally against their homecooked desi meals. 

Here’s the paper if you are interested in examining the research in more detail. If you are interested in how cultural stereotypes affect people’s actions and choices, then you may want to follow the work of Sapna Cheryan, which also includes research on why women are underrepresented in computer science and how that might be changed:

(Image via Flickr: calculat0r)