Great morning. Joyful Presidents’ Working day. Ligaya Mishan had a lovely essay on the origins of region captain in The Situations last 7 days, tracing the aromatic, curried hen dish from its house in the Lowcountry of the American South to its origins in Britain and India, “a legacy of colonials with palates freshly awakened to the choices of spice.”
I’m intrigued by Ligaya’s recipe (above), which will come from Rohan Kamicheril, the founder and editor of Tiffin, a site devoted to the regional cuisines of India. Kamicheril grew up eating state captain in Bangalore, his mother’s recipe, handed down by his grandmother, who was of Anglo-Indian descent. There are none of the soupy tomatoes that outline the dish in The usa, only the juice and fat of the hen, spice-darkened onions, golden potatoes. It is a dish meant to be eaten proper absent. I simply cannot wait around to do that.
Afterwards you can assess it to this recipe I uncovered from group cookbooks and some of the best kitchen area palms in and all around Charleston, S.C. The rooster is fried, then stewed with tomatoes and served more than rice with crumbled bacon, slivered almonds and dried currants, occasionally with sliced bananas. It’s pretty Junior League. Also, tremendous delicious.
State captain for supper tonight, then! It’s possible with Melissa Clark’s new recipe for pineapple-ginger coffee cake for dessert and tomorrow’s breakfast?
And we are standing by to help, should one thing go mistaken in your kitchen or with our technological know-how. Just compose cooking[email protected] and somebody will get again to you. (If not, produce to me: [email protected]. I can just take a punch. I go through each individual letter sent.)
Now, it’s a extensive push about rough terrain from anything at all to do with celery root or maple syrup, but I beloved Alexandra Jacobs’s wry overview, in The Periods, of “Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Greenback Babies,” by Laura Thompson.
Similarly entertaining is Molly Young’s recommendation, in her Browse Like the Wind newsletter, of Han Suyin’s 1962 novella “Wintertime Enjoy.” “This rec goes out to all my lesbian zoologists,” Molly wrote. “Make some noise, girls!” Others will thrill to the prose as properly. (I discovered a copy on the internet for about $12.)
Verify out the Chris Martin show at the Anton Kern Gallery in New York, with its huge Brooklyn-in-the-Catskills vitality. (Roberta Smith likes it!)
Eventually, Richard Fausset place me on to William Beckmann’s protect of “Volver, Volver,” which Beckmann played dwell in Texas final yr. Pay attention to that, cook dinner a whole lot, and I’ll be again on Wednesday.