Astorialogues mixer!

[lanseaux]

Yes, it was a great time! And the food was tasty, too. I'd like to check out their dinner soon.

I'd like to give a special thanks to lanseaux, who told me that the little store next to Oleput is good and probably sells cardamom. I went there yesterday afternoon and got a bag of it.

Awesome! Glad they did indeed have it. Do you have a special recipe you like to use? With this weather, chai sounds very appetising indeed.

[essen]

I'm only experimenting at this point. Every recipe I find is very different from the next, with ginger and cardamom being pretty much the only universal ingredients. Tonight's the closest I've come to a tolerable chai, but I'm still not thrilled with it. But tonight I took 3 cloves, 3 cardamom pods, about an inch of chopped ginger, 2 whole allspice, 1 cinnamon stick, a few anise seeds... mashed all the spices except for the ginger with a mortar and pestle, and dumped it all into simmering water and let it go, covered, for about 15 minutes. Then I added a bag of PG Tips (english black tea - good stuff, though I'm sure darjeeling is better for this purpose), let that brew for a few minutes, and towards the end I poured a little half & half and honey in there. Then I dumped it all through a tea sock. This is nice and spicy.

What I'd like is a little vanilla flavor for enhanced creaminess, but this is the best "spice" flavor I've gotten so far. I'm not sure if I'll experiment with vanilla beans any time soon. I might try out some star anise or fennel at some point.

[TRX]

I wish to have metup. We were able however to enjoy a Fall day.


At some point, I hope to get back to Seva for some good Indian food.
It would likely be improptu but will see if others might be around when it works out.

Happy halloween.