Introductions

Wow, I'm here!  It only took me 16 days, but I'm ready to roll!


I first became acquainted with Madhur, or rather her recipes, 3 years ago when a friend had me over for dinner.  My experience with Indian food bordered on slim to none, but I enthusiastically accepted her invitation, curious to learn more about the cuisine I had eaten less than a handful of times.  


I helped my friend prepare the meal and was overwhelmed by the complexity of unfamiliar ingredients, cooking techniques, and the admixture of spices that blended together seamlessly.  Needless to say, dinner was entirely delicious and I had to know who had created these amazing recipes.  


I returned home that night, leftovers in one hand and a small slip of paper with "Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey" written in my friend's neat script.  I climbed into bed enveloped in the smell of the night's meal, determined to begin cooking this wonderful food for myself.  I bought the book the next day, and after it arrived I promptly placed it with my other cookbooks and never opened it.  I looked at it's spine on the shelf longingly from time to time, but never cracked it, convincing myself that I didn't have the time to cook Indian food (I was a first year medical student; wasn't I supposed to study all the time??) or the money to buy all the ingredients and utensils I'd need.  And so it sat for 3 years.


Fast forward to December 31st, 2009.  A friend of mine and I spent a quiet New Year's Eve in; I cooked her dinner and we watched Julie and Julia.  Both women inspired me, but Julie's project really hit home.  She dove into a cooking style in which she had little to no experience and taught herself French cuisine (perhaps more intimidating than Indian); why couldn't I do the same?  The previous roadblocks I'd imagined suddenly melted away; it was time to stop making excuses and learn to cook.  Julie has Juila.  I have Madhur.


It took me awhile to decide if I wanted to blog about this experience.


Pros:

• It will keep me accountable; I need some motivation to get through 261 recipes by myself.
• It's a great place to record my thoughts about a recipe; how it turned out, execution problems, what (if anything) I'd change the next time.
• Maybe my notes and thoughts will be useful to others.

Cons:

• Lots of work!  Man, I've been at this post for awhile now!  Much longer than I thought it would take.  Trying to keep up might be hard to do.
• Copycat, anyone?  

Julie had a great idea.  She inspired me to finally take on a project I'd been neglecting for years.  I'm not in this for a movie deal.  My aspiration is to become a proficient cook in a culinary tradition that I love.  Right now, I'm not proficient in anything.  I have a midwest meat-and-potatoes background, 3 years as a vegan, 1 year as a raw vegan (yes, really), and now a year or so as a conscious omnivore.  Since my diet changed every couple years, I never fully learned a cooking (ahem, or "preparing" for the raw year) skill set.  I'm excited to have a tradition to follow, learn typical flavor and texture combinations, and seriously, how to cook rice correctly.  And, with a less restricted diet, I'm free to try all the amazing recipes in the book.  Woohoo!

I think I'll leave it here and dive into logistics tomorrow.