Weave a Thousand Flavors

In Memoriam : Nannie Davis' Southern Buttermilk Pie

You've heard me speak of Nannie Davis before. 

I think of her every time I eat southern food, hear a southern accent, shuck corn, string beans and see vine ripened tomatoes.

In short I think of her a lot.

Nannie Davis was 91 years old when she passed away. I knew her a sum total of 1-1/2 years and she completely and irrevocably touched my life. Because family are relations by blood but sometimes if you get very lucky, family are relations by bond.

People who adopt you into their fold. The most unlikely of people who at the most unlikely of times invite you into their lives and engulf you in their warmth. It doesn't matter that she's a 91 to your 30.

This is your tribe.

She was my neighbour that year and a half. And the walls between our homes disappeared. We cooked together, sat on the back porch and shucked corn, sipped icy cold lemonade, swapped recipes and did Lowe's runs together.

She also braved my uber spicy curries & Jambalaya - bless her heart!

People always looked at us funny when we were together. I guess they thought what an odd pair we made and we often chuckled about that. I guess they couldn't quite tell how we were related!

She was with me for almost my entire pregnancy with my first son. Unfortunately, she passed away a week before I gave birth and never met him.

She did however leave me with many many precious gifts - an invaluable friendship with her grand daughter Beth who selflessly cared for her and lived with her and whom I love dearly.

She taught me everything I know about true Southern food - she'd always remind me that she grew up on a farm in North Carolina and they had to raise their own chickens and grow their own vegetables and that I needed to learn how to do it right with all the fixin's.

And boy did she teach me how to make her pies. Like her Million Dollar Pie.

And this gorgeous, custardy, lemony, rich and creamy buttermilk pie.  

"The secret is lemon zest" she'd always say "that and love & home made pie crust".

"Yes ma'am!"

So here's to Nannie Davis and to wonderful moments and people that life hands us.

To the many nameless people who touch our lives in myriad ways, who sacrifice for us, who do the right thing at the worse of times because they represent the very best of our humanity.

And to pie.

Batata Poha ~ A classic Brunch Specialty of Flattened Rice & Potatoes from Maharashtra

Meet Maharashtra's favorite brunch - Batata Poha.

Batata Poha is a quick saute of flattened rice a.k.a beaten rice and potatoes scented and flavored with curry leaves & chillies and tempered with cumin & mustard seeds in hot oil. Beaten rice is de-husked rice which is flattened into flat light dry flakes.

Poha or flattened rice can be purchased at any Indian or Pakistani store and is ready to use straight out of the bag. It is important to purchase the right kind of poha for the right dish though. This one requires the fat variety as the thin variety turns to mush under the onslaught of moisture and heat.

This is one of those dishes that is big on simplicity and equally big on technique. One of the most common mistakes with this dish is add water either while cooking the potatoes or while sauteing the flattened rice.

In fact, it is best to leave water out of the equation for most part using it only while running tap water over the flattened rice in a sieve, simply to rehydrate it.

In order to quickly and effectively cook the potatoes without water, the potatoes need to chopped thin so it can be cooked by sauteing.

Once you follow these few simple steps, perfect batata poha is a given and that in itself is no small feat! Because as we all know, some of the greatest culinary challenges lie in the simpest of preparations - think, poached egg!

If anything, Batata Poha is a perfect example of a handful of simple and frugal ingredients coming together in perfect harmony to create what can only be described as satisfying and delicious.

A sprinkle or fried peanuts or some fresh grated coconut and chopped cilantro and you've managed to dress up an already lovely meal.

Asian Style Cooling Cucumber Salad

Cucumber is used all throughout Asia as a side to spicy dishes.

And for good reason.

It's delicious.

And it's cooling.

That in in itself is a good enough reason as any to treat yourself to this lovely salad that takes only minutes to prepare. Chances are, you have just about everything already sitting in your pantry.

It does need a mandolin for evenly cut slices. The rest is easy - some finely sliced red onion, a scatter of edamame seeds, rice wine vinegar (Mirin), honey, sesame oil, a touch of garlic and salt.

A sprinkle of cayenne to finish it off and there you have it. What a great hot weather side to roasted meats and spicy stir-fries!

A Treat For Mum ~ Fluffy Coconut, Lemon & Blueberry Pancakes

I can't imagine weekends without something special and made-from-scratch come Sunday morning. And what a great way to treat Mum!

French toast, scrambled eggs, sausage & egg muffin sandwiches, you name it, we love it! But pancakes will always be on the top of the most requested breakfast by the younglings.

So the race is always on to out do the last batch, spruce up my basic recipe or create something different altogether. These pancakes take fundamentally salt-of-the-earth flavors and turn them into the fluffiest, cakiest pancakes ever. I must thank my stars for the creative juices that were flowing copiously for this one!

Using both sweet and dessicated coconut, fresh lemon zest and fresh summer blueberries....let me tell you - it does not get much better than that!

Pure grade A maple syrup with is not optional and neither are the warm and fuzzy smiles you'll get when you bring a batch of these to the table.

The fact that you'll love these as much as they will makes these a reward in itself!

Pub Grub ~ Fiery Chicken 65

Chicken 65 is a popular chicken snack to come out of Madras in Southern India and is now popular all over the world with its tantalizing fiery hot flavors.

Boneless chicken is first marinated in ground spices, flour and ginger-garlic paste. It is then deep fried and finished when it is sauteed with curry leaves, 'as many chillies as your stomach lining can handle' and yogurt.

The result is a fun and what I like to call toothpick-party-snack. The spicy flavors as you can imagine does justice to tall glass of cold beer.

How the name chicken 65 came along is heavily steeped folk lore. Some say it has to do with the fact that it was created in a Madras restaurant in 1965 and some say 65 was the number of spices or chillies used.

How anyone lived to tell the tale after ingesting 65 chillies is anyone's guess!

Rest assured, chicken 65 by any other name would be just as scintillating, fiery and hot.