When Ellie lived in Baltimore, I often took her to D.C. on the weekends.  On weekdays, while she was at work, I would often go to D.C. myself.  I tried to minimize the amount of time I spent in Baltimore is I guess what I am saying.  The restaurant scene in D.C. was, unsurprisingly, superior to that in Baltimore.  One place I quickly got hooked on was Rasika, an Indian restaurant with enough acclaim that its team was selected to cater the state luncheon for Narendra Modi at the White House back in 2014.  Notable dishes are a crispy spinach appetizer that is not just tasty but transforms the spinach into something novel, and an avocado banana chaat that looks like dog food but tastes heavenly.  So when I discovered that Rasika has a cookbook, I decided to pick it up⁠—I love Indian food, but I do get tired of the same dozen dishes that show up on every Indian restaurant menu, and I looked forward to the chance to make some of the sorts of innovative dishes Rasika serves up.  There are some easy recipes that are pretty good but not life-changing, and some recipes that turn out great but are too labor-intensive for me to want to make them regularly.  So I’m glad I have this, but not as glad as I am that I was able to go to Rasika a few times.

Plenty More
Yotam Ottolenghi, 2014

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty actually was life-changing, so I was eager to get my hands on the sequel.  It’s very good, but compared to its predecessor, that’s almost disappointing.  I’ve made a couple dozen or so of the recipes in this book, and while I enjoyed most of them, only a handful made me want to add them to my regular repertoire.  One odd thing about this cookbook is that it is organized by the primary cooking technique, so you have one chapter for roasting things, one chapter for braising things, etc.  I’m not sure how often people have conversations like this:  “So, what do you feel like for dinner?”  “Something simmered. Don’t care what!”

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