The next thing I decided to tackle was an Indian meal, or I should say, what I hoped resembled one, as I'm sure the curry I put together was far from authentic. Since I was winging it through most of this adventure, I had no time at all to look up recipes in cookbooks, or even find cookbooks. I am absolutely sure, however, that the samosas I started with were authentic, since I bought them frozen from my favourite Indian restaurant, Himalaya, which is hidden out in a strip mall on Centennial Parkway in Stoney Creek. It's a low-budget, low-decor kind of place that nonetheless makes the kind of perfectly executed Indian food that makes your heart sing, and all vegetarian. I was able to buy 40 samosas from them, so all I had to do later was let them defrost a little, brush them with oil and let them bake. I served them as a snack/appetizer, and people were so happy with these that I think a few crew members were surprised when I announced that the rest of lunch was served, they thought the samosas were lunch. Come on guys, would I do that to you? One of my standard all-time favourite dishes is roasted cauliflower, all you have to do for that is drizzle cauliflower pieces with olive oil, salt and pepper them and roast them in a 400 degree oven. You stir them a few times to make sure they don't just brown on the bottom. I love the way the high heat of the oven transforms cauliflower, and it turns out it is even better with some cumin, mustard and fennel seeds sprinkled on as well. I also cooked up some rice with coconut milk, and I put together a large curry with tons of vegetables, some beans and a bit of tvp. I don't normally use tvp, but it works well in dishes that are heavily flavoured stews, it manages to soak up enough flavour to be delicious. I included it because I wanted to make sure that the vegetarians and vegans in the group were getting adequate protein. I had some concerns about giving them some variety as far as vegetarian protein goes, because I think that vegetarians get offered a lot of bean dishes, which may get tiresome, and I know that the only other reliable vegan protein I could come up with was firm tofu from the supermarket. It is a little bit of a challenge to do grocery shopping for vegans in a small town, there is no tempeh, not too many exotic items, difficult to find grains like quinoa. Although I was really impressed overall with what I could buy in Grimsby. Grocery stores all over southern Ontario have come such a long way in say, 10 years. When I was growing up you would have had to drive to Toronto for rice paper sheets, or bok choy, or lime pickle.
I got to know the Grimsby Food Basics very, very well during this shoot because it was the closest and best grocery store to the monastery, and their low prices worked out so well for us and for trying to stay in our budget. There was really quite a lot of diversity for a small town grocery store, it had different special sections for European, Carribean, and Asian and East Asian foods. I really knew exactly where everything was by the end of 3 weeks. At any rate, it was quite a struggle before every meal to deal with an attack of fear about having enough food, this would happen before every meal, I would become convinced I had not made enough. There is a lot riding on having the right amount- unlike in a restaurant I can't just cross the item off the menu, can't send the customers over to the next restaurant. I would just have to watch plates being filled with an eagle eye on what remained, and almost without fail there was plenty left over. I remember standing and looking into an enormous pot still almost full with curry that night, and wondering if I would be capable of relaxing about the amounts of food I was making. I never
did...
-DEIRDRE
We filmed in "The Chapel" today. We forgot to get a fog machine and the crew helped out by smoking to make an appropriate haze akin to a dusty room. The smokers on set thought this was hilarious at 8 in the morning but soon decided it was a very unappealing time of day for such activities. Ech. But it looked very nice on camera.
-IRIS
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