lassi

Playing Catch-Up

2008-10-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

The one thing about blogging is that it takes quite a bit
of dedication. A lot has happened since my last post.
The dinners at The Old North Branch Inn were a success.
Lassi is still going though greatly suffered at the
hands of those toying with the national economy.
I had a baby. I'm now part of a roundtable that combines
media and other food types just to see what might
happen if we eat enough salumi and gelato together.

I'll start slowly.

The dinners in North Branch were a huge success.
I did one that was a buffet and one that was plated----both
Indian. And I was able to do one more dinner with Amanda
Freitag from The Harrison before
the end of the season. Victoria from the Inn really wanted
me to have another dinner and we had Anita Lo ready to come
up and wow us all but I was getting larger and Anita was
exhausted from opening Bar Q so we've moved that to next season.

Amandas dinner was fantastic. She and her assistant, Love,
turned out a great menu href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_c0MCggugcdA/SQB2XM2D5MI/AAAAAAAAAE0/O_6mrvPZofY/s1600-h/loveandamanda.jpg">
I'm a bit remiss in my duties. But I've put in a call to Amanda
to remind me of her menu for that evening. I got to sit during that
dinner and enjoy the meal. I'll post the menu as soon as she calls me back.
I remember most of it. I just don't want to leave anything out.

And believe it or not, we
had quite the celebrity turn out. Here's a little proof:

This is Amanda with Mark Ruffalo and our new friend Ira. Ira is a principle of
a high school in Brooklyn. Which makes him a huge celebrity in our eyes.
And here is Debra Winger with the chef:

Of course, star sighting happen like this daily in NYC but for the life of me
I was shocked to be sitting next to these people in North Branch while
Pat, the plumber wife and old friend of my grandparents waited on me.
If you've read my post before, I'm sure you're more than ready to be over the
change in North Branch and the surrounding areas. You'll have to bear with me.
Deliverace was more the theme until recently and part of me happily died with it.

Excellent Press

2008-03-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

There is a post on March 19 on Grub Street, the NY Magazine
food blog. It's about So hui Kim, the chef at the Good Fork in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It's no secret I love alerting the world to my more talented
friends in the restaurant business. So hui is a good friend and an amazingly
talented chef. We met a few years back at the Italian Wine Merchants. Her husband, Ben, built The Good Fork and also did all the gorgeous wood and brass work here at Lassi.
It's great to see the talent of a great chef being noticed...and a woman at that.

Southern Comfort

2008-03-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

(Hominy Grill--Best breakfast in the South)

Each year I'm lucky enough to be invited down to the Charleston
Food and Wine Festival. I say I'm lucky because as far as these
events go, and there are an awful lot of them these days, this event
is the perfect combination of great food, great local marketing and the
education of Southern cuisine and restaurants.

From a chef's point of view, I like it for three main reasons.
One, I've gotten to learn about what a great food town Charleston
is and have become friends with Charleston chefs I truly admire.
Each year this event suprises me more than the next. Coming from NYC,
where there is an ambitious restaurant around every corner, one doesn't
expect that to happen in other towns outside of L.A. or Chicago.
There is love of local produce and the true culiary arts that rivals
California and their whole fresh produce fetish thing that we love about them.
And though much of the food world is too busy looking at NY, Aspen and South Beach
for the insane crowded food loving madness that seems to make people feel legit,
Charleston has not gone unnoticed. These chefs are largely Beard nominated and
at anytime during the festival you run into the big guys. Big as in Ruth Reichl and Tom Colecchio. My first year there I got to have lunch with the late R.W. Apple. Not too shabby.

Two, it's opposite of most of the events we usually do in the industry. There is a civility about it that makes it a joy to do no matter how hard I have to work while I'm there. True, I make sure I go for the full four days and only work one or two
events but there are very few NY chefs that do this event and I usually feel the need
to bust it out a bit. I do most of my work at Lassi and ship everything down. This way I get to really enjoy myself, the city and the great chef community down there.

And three, they put you up in the best possible hotel. The Charleston Place. Big thanks to Mickey Bakst the GM of their restaurant for being the best host and a great friend.
(My apologies to Kenny Callahan of Blue Smoke. Not to rub it in, Ken. This year they put him up at a Holiday Inn due to the location of his event. A little bitter.) Here is where we stay:

Very often, your chances of being put up somewhere this great are slim. Budgets and stuff like that. Each year, my friends Michael and Heather Laiskonis (pastry chef of Le Bernardin and GM at Tailor, respectively) are with me on this trip. It's thanks to them that I'm part of this event. Heather and I spend lots of time at the spa there. Here's the pool, just to show you how fabulous:

On to more culiary things, this year I did the first dinner I've done
as a chef, not a pastry chef. Very exciting. And I had some very exciting company.
The dinner was at FIG, one of my favorite restaurants. The chef, Mike Lata hosted Suzanne Goin of L.A.'s Lucques, Michael Laiskonis and myself for this dinner. We each made a course. I know there were a bunch of other dinners going on that evening with very talented chefs and I have no idea what they did, but this is my blog and I'll have to say it was just the best menu.

I had the first course.
Almond Shorba with local shrimp seasoned with Bengali 5-Spice and spicy mint chutney.
The shrimp down there is really like no other. The thickness of the shorba with
the shrimp on top made the dish into an Indian version of Shrimp and Grits, a local favorite.

Mike, our host made an "over easy ravioli"--poetic license for the ricotta ravioli
with raw egg yolk in the middle. I love that dish. He served it with local baby asparagus.

Suzanne Goin was in charge of the entree. Braised veal cheeks with cavalo nero,
risotto carbonara and truffle butter. Wondering if the hype had teeth? Yes, it does. Had never met Suzanne before and I enjoyed spending a little time with
her in the kitchen.

Michael gave the meal the big finish with a pre-dessert of a greek yogurt
panna cotta with grapefruit, basil and avocado.
Following was a Amadei Gianduja parfait with organic hazelnuts and black truffle honey. Fantastic. It's one of my favorite dessets. One of these days Michael and I will have an Amadei vs. Domori conversation, until then I'll just drool over this dessert.

There was also a big pastry chef event the next night. I thought wisely and
had Damion Badalamenti make the Lassi chocolates to wow the crowd and that they did.

Later that evening all the chefs gathered for a party at FIG. It was just where you'd want to be after such a great weekend. A portable pizza oven, lots of roast pork and the southern sky. What more could a girl want?

2008-02-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since the last post.
This Thursday, I'll be leaving for the Charleston Food and Wine Festival.
Four days of Southern Food, friends and fancy fancy food people galore.
You think South Beach Food and Wine is crazy?
Try a bowl of shrimp and grits....

One of my fancier friends...

2008-01-27T05:15:00.001-08:00

Today I'd like to tell you about a fabulous new blog.
It belongs to Michael Laiskonis, the pastry chef at Le Bernardin.

Michael has been at Le B for about 4 years. Eric Ripert found him
in Michigan. Not France, not New York or some Thomas Keller vehicle.
Michigan.
What does this mean? It means he was doing pastry in Michigan
better than most people do here in Gotham. I hope that puts a fire
under your butt.

Anyway, other than having the pastry chef position of NYC pastry positions,
being winner of the James Beard Award last year and sharing with me a love for
Fugazi and the Jam, he is also an intellegent and generous writer. Recipes, techniques and great photos fill the blog. Organized and a bit obsessed, don't let
him intimidate you. Note the gummy bear listing in a photo of his journal.

www.michael-laiskonis.com

The Real Thing

2008-01-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted. I've had rather ambitious
plans about a big "what I intend to eat in the New Year" type of post
reminiscent of most other bloggers but unlike most bloggers, I forgot
I had a restaurant to run and that tends to take up most of my time.

Still suprises me sometimes.

Fact is, there isn't anything I'm really dying to eat in the New Year.
Other than really good food. I love dining out and I love dining in. Just love
dining. Good food can be found anywhere. So I'll stand back from dropping names
and showing off.

What I will talk about now is how I recently was brought back to every reason
I became what I am today.
We spent Christmas this year at my Aunt Gladys' house. Back to the Bronx for perhaps the best lasagne ever.
Really. Ever. But I'm going to go to her house soon and cook with her and that
right there will be one hell of a post so I'll leave the lasagne tip until later.

I always say that my favorite sweets from childhood are Italian bakery cookies.
Reginas, taralle...and don't get me started on the rainbow cookies. Where did those come from anyway???
I started to think in recent years that I just lost my taste for them. Didn't quite do for me what they did when I was a kid. So I wrote them off with the other things that don't quite do it for me anymore.

Now I know why.
Aunt Gladys had cookies from the bakery we always went to when I was a kid.
And yes, they were to die for. Why anyone would make a biscotti of lesser quality is beyond me.
They were from Sal and Doms on Allerton Avenue. Sal and Doms has maintained the
same quality all these years. Veniero's and DiRoberti's pale in comparison.

I'm a little suprised with all the hoopla people make about Arthur Avenue and the
amazing Italian food of the Bronx, no one has written about Sal and Doms.
It is truly the best.

Sal and Dom's Bakery
1108 Allerton Avenue
Bronx, NY

2007-12-02T03:59:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to talk a little Italian food. Probably a little overdue in my case but really, it's
a much talked about cuisine and considering my background--both having to do with my career and
my gene pool---I've felt there are people who at the moment live for it a bit more than I do.

And then I changed my mind.

A friend of mine, Roberta Corradin, a food writer from Rome is in NYC for a while
and spending even a small amount of time with her opened the flood gates for all that I
know and love about Italian food.....and chocolate.
In some ways chocolate is very separate from food for me. I've been very fortunate to have
had a lot of experience with great Italian chocolate before most people knew anything other than
Perugina Baci.
(When I was a kid we would go down to Little Italy for Sanguinaccio---chocolate and blood pudding.
I loved it. That's a very different post but it gives you an idea that I'll take chocolate in any form.)

Roberta and I have been talking a lot of chocolate these days. Domori has always been my hands-down
favorite. I worked for them breifly a few years back when the company was very small and everything was really
made by the owner, Gianluca Franzoni. Illy Coffee bought it recently. Which makes me very happy for Gianluca
and hopefully happy for the rest of the world as well. Perhaps now more people can experience it.
She's helping me get my hands on some to do some great baking at Lassi.

In her visit to NYC, Roberta is writing a piece on great lunch spots. So cool. I love lunch.
I'm a little over dinner these days and lunch always fits the bill.
She is also helping a dear publisher friend get his new project out there. It's a English version
of a famous cookbook in Italy "Nonna Genia's Classic Langhe Cookbook".
Langhe is not a particularly well-know part of Italy for Americans, I know. Tuscany shines bright
in that case but with my new found skill of cutting and pasting, I give you a little bit of Langhe from
some website I found:

Tucked away in northwest Italy and bordered by the Alps and Liguria, Piedmont (literally "Foothill") does not feel quite as Italian as other regions, the neighboring countries of Switzerland and France having had a distinct influence on its people. It is, however, a highly alluring region and one of the most delightful to be discovered in Italy. Nestled in the heart of Piedmont, the hilly, mist-cloaked area known as the Langhe is a region within a region. Located among medieval castles which stand guard over vineyards on gently rolling hills, the Langhe is an area almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of wine grapes and hazelnuts.

Did you read that? Wine grapes and hazelnuts. And the wine they are best known for is Barolo. Langhe is your
new best friend. They also specialize in white truffles, great cheeses and wild mushrooms.

The cookbook is really great. I don't have a lot of patience for a lot of cookbooks....not to say that I don't own a ton
and enjoy reading them but this is a book that makes you want to cook. Only a few do that for me.
It's a modest book. If you want pretty pictures, this isn't your thing but the recipes are fabulous and easy to read.

Some favorites:
Fava Bean Soup
Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce

Some that wow:
Chickpea soup with Spareribs
Blood Lasagne
"Capricious" Frittata (with salami, left over vean and parm)
Woodcock with Polenta

Roberta is a woman on a mission. She is here to help her publisher friend so he can put his kids in
school next year. She's got the book selling in Kitchen Arts and Letter and Bonnie Slotnick.
And you can always contact me for a book....or five.

Good website for the new restaurateur

2007-11-18T04:26:00.000-08:00

A small jewel for those of you in the first steps of starting
your own empire. You're going to need a lot of legal things
done and that's expensive.

Check out www.legalzoom.com

Get your LLC, SCorp, trademarks, contracts and if
you see the whole restaurant thing being the end of you,
a will.

The fees are low and you are assigned a real lawyer.
I trademarked the name "Lassi" and was assigned a great
lawyer that worked for the government trademark office.
She taught me a lot and helped me get over many hurdles.

The monetary difference between a lawyer and LegalZoom?
$5000.00

Don't ever say I never gave you anything.

antique store, Callicoon, Sullivan County, NY

2007-11-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

Nothing to do with food but I wish I had written it myself.

North Branch with New Eyes

2007-11-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

Last weekend found me with the ability to do something
I rarely get to do, get the hell out of Dodge and breath
some mountain air.
My grandparents bought some land and a small, small, small
house in North Branch, NY in the Catskill Mountains sometime
in the early 50's. The coming years brought the addition of a couple
of bedrooms and, to my mother's delight, an indoor bathroom and the
destruction of the out house.
To say that the place was in the middle of nowhere would
be an understatement.
My cousins and I grew up going up there for weekends
with my grandparents when they were there on their vacations
and truly, there really wasn't anything to do.
I think TV came sometime in the 70's and cable in the 80's but
only in the way of Canadian sitcoms that weren't even picked up
by their own.
We saw the addition of a porch and then later the enclosing of the porch.
The wood paneling and carpeting remained and a short time after
we lost my grandfather, my father took it upon him to make
what was on overgrown acre of land into a beautiful landscaped
country home.
Yes, it was beautiful. IS beautiful.
We all loved the weekends up there but never much left the property
once we got there. My grandparents rarely did so why would we?

Fast forward to present. I took the weekend to get away with my good
friend Heather. Another restaurant person in need of a little mountain
air and some girltime.
We left the property. We met lots of people. It was crazy.
I suppose I should'nt have been suprised once my hairdresser had bought a house
in the area and there was a local gay pride parade but old impressions die hard.

This brings me to the Old North Branch Inn.

Last year the abandoned Old North Branch Inn was bought by Victoria
Lesser, a designer based in Key West who had bought a country house in nearby
Callicoon Center. The Inn seemed like a great project. Now she owns it and
lives there.

It still had an original bowling alley and a bar from the 1939 world's fair.

We met Victoria while grabbing a coffee and a piece of amazing apple pie
at Baxter's, the coffee bar she opened in the lobby. Only local bakers are
featured.

We took a tour of the rooms and decided that she had us at the bathrooms.
The place is respectful of where it is with just enought comforts (small flatscreen TVs, heat and enormous showers) to not feel like
you rented out someone's barn for the weekend. A night at the Inn: $120 or $140.
Fabulous.
A wine license is on the way. Cheese, wine and bowling nights are soon to follow.

We met a couple from the city now living in North Branch, Steve and Kimberly and their four-month-old Owen. Steve and Kimberly have started a record label which
means, unbeknownst to them, they'll be seeing me again in the near future.

Now other than pushing my new friend Victoria's inn, why are we here?
Food, of course.
Victoria came into the city a few days later and had lunch at Lassi.
I just loved that. I would do it but I would visit a toll booth if I knew someone.
She said she'd like to have guest chef dinners. I said I could get a ton of very
fabulous chefs who would love to do such a thing.
Well, I'll be the first.
Not a lot of Indian food up there in Sullivan County.
I have every intention of getting some great dinners going up there.
Some of my favorite chefs have already signed on.

Looks like it's going to be quite a summer and we haven't even
sold the last Tandoori turkey yet.

Beauty and Truth Prevail

2007-11-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in the Dining Section of the NYTimes,
The Under $25 section reviewed El Quinto Pino.
Here's sending love to the girls and of course,
to Eder(who hasn't come to visit me in a while).

Besos.

Indiophiles Around the World

2007-10-31T15:49:00.001-07:00

I love this banner.
After shamelessly Googling myself in the "Image" category,
I came upon an Italian website all about Asian food.

No suprise to me. After years of working in Italy and having many
close friends in Italy, I've learned the love Italians have for Asian foods.
From any country.
Whenever I get a visitor from Italy, there are always meals in favorite
Asian restaurants for their remaining days here in NYC.
Now that I have an Indian restaurant, I am my Italian friends' favorite
New Yorker. If I wasn't sure before, I'm quite definite now.

Anyway, the website is www.corriereasia.com
There is a review of Lassi and from what I can tell, it's quite flattering.

Or I'm lying to myself.

But that aside, I love the banner image. It says tons and it makes me smile.

s.s. france trois

2007-10-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

The following photos are of the S.S. France circa 1970.
Please scroll down to read the original France entry.

s.s. france photos

2007-10-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not particularly ept at the computer thing.
So I'll be posting the photos of the S.S. France
and it's kitchens as best I can.
Stay tune for the rest tomorrow.
Thank you for your patience.
Happy Motoring.

S.S. France

2007-10-01T01:55:00.000-07:00

All chefs get the same questions thrown at them left and right. The all time worst
to me is "What is your specialty?"
It's not an easy question to answer.
When I was doing pastry, I always answered with "Pastry".
I know the answer desired was to be more specific, such as "French" or "Italian".
But at a certain level a chef tries to have some mastery of everything
and to try to pigeon hole what may have a million influences is difficult.
What can you say if you make stunning wedding cakes, have a handle on
ice carving and come up with media worthy menus every season?

I'm cooking a lot of Indian these days but I still have a couple of decades of pastry
under my belt and I still do pastry daily. Now what?

The next most asked question is probably "What influenced you to become a chef?"
Another big question. If you've truly made this your career, the influence had to be big.
It's a 24/7 job. Maybe more so in New York. It's social and it's everywhere.
And now, it's even considered to be an affluent job. Go figure.

I came across some pictures the other day that made me remember the earliest threads
of what was to come for me and my dedication to the kitchen.

When I was three years old (stay with me here, it gets better...), my parents took me on vacation on the
S.S. France.
The S. S. France was at one time the largest cruise liner on the water at 316 meters. It was known for
luxury, French service and fine French food.

My mother remembers with misty eyes the steamer trunks arriving days before our departure so we
could pack with our vacation wear. The day the ship left port you had nothing to carry but a hand bag.
Someone has got to bring that back or I've got to start taking better vacations.

The memories of the ship and the people we met on the France have always remained very vivid for me.
I had my own state room and my parents had a lot of fashionable new clothes. Pucci the first time around.

There was a lot of table side service and to this day I don't think I've ever gotten over it.
I love table side. Recently, I had lunch at Jean-Georges. Phillipe, the GM, carved and dressed
a pineapple tableside. Worth the price of admission.

I am convinced that the defining moment for me---the moment I decided to become a pastry chef---
was at 3 on the S.S. France. It was my parents anniversary and my father had the pastry chef make
a baked alaska in the shape of the ship for each table in the dining room. They came out of the kitchen all
at once in traditional fashion, en flambe.
How on Earth do you not carry that with you for all eternity?
Nevermind that they didn't get their name right on theirs, it's just too fabulous.

About a year ago, I was listening to Mike Colameco's radio show and he was interviewing a writer that had
come out with a book about his life and the food around it.
I wish I could remember who he was. He is very famous. His cousin was Jill St. John, if that rings any
bells. The one thing that really caught my attention was that he talked about how if father gave him
a ticket for a vacation on the S.S. France for his college graduation. Colameco knew all about the ship
and it's culinary reputation. It was so exciting to hear someone go on about the France
and the opulence that has given my career whatever romance I can muster up about it when
I've been working too much, my feet are giving out and I'm tired of everyone's opinions.

When I was a kid, my mom was a great baker. And yes, my parents loved to go out to restaurants
that were rare in the seventies but are taken for granted now.
A pretty traditional answer to a typical question.
Luckily, though raised in the Bronx, I also was exposed to the type of culinary perfection
I've been working towards ever since.

el quinto pino

2007-09-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

My dear friends at Tia Pol
have opened their second project, El Quinto Pino.
El Quinto Pino (the fifth pinetree) is catalan slang for
saying something is out in the boondocks, or so I hear---
not being the most linguistic of people.

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of this group
of restauranteurs and the food that comes out of
the Tia Pol kitchen. Alex Raij, the chef,and I became friends
one day when she asked me about my goat purveyor.
You can guess how that made me swoon.
Her and her husband/sous chef, Eder, were regulars at Lassi
and as soon
as I could tear myself away from the kitchen I gave
Tia a whirl and I've never turned back.

El Quinto Pino is as true a tapas joint as we have here
in NYC. No seats. Standing only. And it's giving Alex a chance to really
show how versitile she is. Over a meal last week at Next Door Nobu, she
told me how excited she was about the upcoming uni panini she was going
to start serving. I hear there is some Andalucian lemonade that is
out of this world.
Rock and Roll.

Photos of Pino to come.

El Quinto Pino
401 west 24th street
btwn 9th and 10th aves.

Goat

2007-09-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

A few words about goat meat.

We go through a lot of goat meat at Lassi. It's always been a favorite
of mine and it's been great to work with it as much as we do.
It took us a long time to find a good purveyor. We looked in Bay Ridge,
Washington Heights, out in Jackson Heights and over on Essex Street.

We ended up at the Union Square Farmers Market--which for a New York
City chef is like forgetting to look in front of your face.
It was there we found Elly Hushaur, the owner of Patches of Star Dairy
in Nazareth, Pa.

Elly feeds her meat kids alfalfa, orchard grass and clover with
straight well water. The well water has natural minerals like shale,
calcium and magnesium phosphate.
They milk up to only 3 months and are ready at 60-70 lbs.
Sorry animal rights activists.

I'm on a little crusade to get more chefs to use goat.
One of our most popular dishes is a goat kabob. In India,
they make kabobs with ground meat. Kind of cool.
People love kabobs. They're like the Tom Hanks of the food world.
No matter who you are, you dig a good kabob.

Thought we'd share a little with you today.

Goat Kabobs

6" bamboo skewers--soaked in water

3 lbs ground goat
2 onions-finely chopped
3 tblsp grated ginger
3 tblsp garlic-finely chopped
2 tsp. chili
2 tblsp garam masala
2 tblsp cilantro-chopped
2 tblsp ground almonds
2 eggs
1/2 cup besan (chickpea flour)

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate
for at least 4 hours.

Form over skewers with wet hands.
Combine 3/4 cup yogurt with 4 tsp. canola oil
and brush over meat.
Cook 20-25 minutes until browned in 350 degree oven.
Garnish with onion rings and lemon wedges.

Curry

2007-07-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Lassi is known for a number of things–there's the gingerbread Taj Mahal, there's karaoke night at Lips–but curries hold a special place in our repertoire and our heart.

More than any other dish, curries cleared up a lot (a lot, mind you–not all!) of the mystery of Subcontinental cooking for us. The complexity of Indian cuisine* is daunting, but once we started making curries, the spices, the ingredients, the Ayurvedic properties, and the techniques all began falling into place. They took the intimidation out of other dishes that were even more foreign to us at the outset.

Fundamentally, curries are stews. And like stews in other cultures, their flavor profile is markedly layered–with curries, the layering is perhaps even more noticeable than in other stews because each layer is so bold and deliberate. Like any cuisine worth its salt, Indian abounds in regional variation–there's a substantial set of traditions at work, and every town (every cook, even) has a unique way of making and serving a particular dish.

Despite that variation, one thing that many curries of India (and most of the ones you'll find at Lassi) do have in common is onions. Caramelized onions lay the foundation for the robust flavor we love in a Lassi curry (they're great on a burger, too, but that's a different blog). The natural sugars that develop during the browning process produce a subtle sweetness, and that sweetness works as a backdrop for fresh-ground spices to play upon a little later in the currying process.

At the restaurant, we usually start by frying whole seeds in just enough oil to unlock the flavor of the masala. When the spices' aroma begins to fill the room, it's off the cutting board and into the rondeau for our pungent little friends. Once they're on the heat, low and slow is the way to go–not too much fire, not too much fat, just a lot of time and plenty of love to convert the humble bulb to liquid (er, gelatinous) gold.

The smell of caramelizing onions wafting from our kitchen pulls people off Greenwich Avenue daily. We love that. But we love even more how the deep, mellow flavor of caramelized onions gives our curries complexity and richness without the need for added fat. It's amazing how little ghee, oil, or cream you need when you've got them at your disposal.

While onions certainly take center stage at Curry Theater–the versatile stars of such delicious anti-tragedies as murgh makhani, methi shrimp, the moongfalis, the sarsons, the saags–their supporting cast is just as crucial. Ginger, garlic, and chilis (we like the green or red Thai bird variety) round out the essential arsenal of aromatics. These are the elements you'll taste at the heart of almost all our curries.

Now when you're making a curry at home you may be tempted to omit the chilis, if fiery flavors aren't your cup of tea. We beg you, however: give them a chance! No need prove your chops with second-degree fingertip burns in the mincing process, but do include some form of heat (as long as you're cautious, you won't end up with anything that tastes "spicy"**).

Chilis, used sparingly and cooked into the base of the sauce, add a dimension of flavor that has nothing to do with Scoville units. You don't need a lot–with just a touch you'll really round out the flavor of your dish without breaking a sweat.

And not breaking a sweat is what it's all about, right?

–––––

*Of course, there is no such thing as "Indian cuisine" in an overarching sense–but it's a useful way of referring to the league of local cuisines that covers India.

**Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Let there be blog

2007-07-13T19:57:00.001-07:00

From our tiny home on Greenwich Avenue in New York City, we at Lassi sensed something was wrong. Alas! We'd turned two, and had no room to grow. Here we were: a mere 420 square feet of storefront -- the width of an armspan and 70 feet deep -- and itching to expand. We seized our tape measures, dusted off the sextant and fired up the flux transponder (the flux transponder?), but to no avail. Despite our best intentions, we couldn't gain an inch (the building codes, they're harsh).

"But avast!" we cried, confident in a new plan. "We may lack space in the earthly realm, yet the celestial spheres are infinite!" And lo, on a glorious starlit eve, by the miracles of modern technology, the Lassi blog was born -- because on the internet, no one knows you're only six feet wide.

A blog, you ask?

Lassi, from the beginning, has been a test kitchen of sorts -- whether it's traditional Punjabi techniques applied to Hudson Valley produce or a classic Goan roast with a Dominican twist, there's usually something experimental afoot. You'll always find us working on new ways to make food that's categorically delicious, but a little exciting, too. With this blog, we'll have a platform to share our discoveries as we happily toil away.

Moreover, we're lucky enough to be surrounded by a city of great people making great food. Of course, we're always happy to have local chefs stop in and talk shop, but we'd also like to take that sense of community online. More than just a place for keeping in touch with friends and neighbors, though, this blog will also spread the word about what Lassi is putting back into the community. From NYC's own Willie Mae Rock Camp For Girls to the Grameen Foundation's work around the world, we'll keep you posted on what we're doing, how you can help and what you can look forward to from the tiny place at 28 Greenwich Av.

Welcome!