Poor, poor Yousef.

I don’t have a lot of friends.

It’s true! And it’s not something I feel even slightly bad about. There are a lot of reasons for this – I move around a lot. I’m not especially gregarious. And, probably most significantly, I’m kind of an asshole. But, to be honest, I’ve always been okay with that. It would be better if I wasn’t – I’m not trying to turn a vice into a virtue – but in this world, you have to play to your strengths. Some situations call for assholes, and I’m a great person to have around when those situations show up[1]. At least I’m polite to strangers…

I don’t have a lot of friends – but the friends that I do have are a collection of utterly awesome human beings. And I’m lucky enough to live three blocks away from someone who I’ve been friends with for more than twenty years now.

I met Yousef – who I have mentioned before – in high school, and we spent most of the time in between then and now playing games against each other. (I fib, for dramatic effect – technically, we met during junior high, when along with Shahram we agreed to become part of a multi-ethnic terrorist conglomerate. This was back when terrorism was a bit funnier.) Fun fact – at Yousef’s wedding, I tried to give a toast, the general idea being that not only had we been friends so long, but that it looks likely that our children will grow up together, too. Unfortunately, I rolled a critical failure and broke out in tears halfway though.

It is possible, though, that I had imbibed alcohol that night. As we know, strong drink is a mocker - after all, it’s not often that I’m unable to speak my mind.

Actually, the idea that our friendship is so strong that it might outlast us – that it might infect our children, and get passed down through the years – is such a comforting thought that I’m misting up thinking about it right now.

It is possible, though, that I have imbibed some alcohol tonight. After all, it seems a little pathetic and pat to tell you what an asshole I am, then let you in to see my gentle, poetic, sensitive side.

Seems almost manipulative on my part, actually.

So, to protect myself from accusations of being manipulative – because manipulating you, gentle reader, in such a way would sort of be an asshole move - I will say this. Yes, I do have a gentle, poetic, sensitive side. However, I in no way affect an asshole demeanor in order to cover it. I can be an asshole and be sensitive at the same time, without conflict, without one being my true self and the other a persona. My dickishness has Buddha-nature.


Unsurprisingly, Yousef is a frequent visitor at my house, and vice versa. We’re both pretty decent cooks, although our styles are totally different, and totally befitting our personalities. Yousef is studied, methodical; when he wants to do something new, he learns about it, then does it (usually to excellent results). As a result, he’s a spectacular baker; baking, after all, calls for a methodical approach. He makes croissants and bagels; I’ve always considered those to be bakery-only items.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably guessed that’s not the way I roll. I’m a bit more spontaneous, a bit more playful. I’m definitely less reliable, but sometimes my plans are just crazy enough to work. I’m the original series to his Next Generation[2].

So when Victoria and I go over to Yousef and Sarah’s house, we get consistently great meals. When they come over to our place, more often than not they’re getting some experiment that I’m trying and feel like inflicting on people. I’m not saying that I make them bad meals – I mean, they keep coming back – but…

Well, here’s the point. Since I started this blog, I’ve taken the opportunity, when people come over, to make a meal showcasing the spice of the week. Maybe I’ve got some meat dishes that I haven’t had a chance to make because I’m cooking for my vegetarian wife. Maybe I want to try one last thing before the end of the week. Or maybe I’m still short on things to write for the next week so need to force some extra turmeric on people.

The obvious problem with that – in Yousef’s words – is that a meal where every dish focuses on one spice is not necessarily the best put-together meal in the world. Cumin, for example, goes really well with coriander – so rather than a cumin-heavy dish with cumin rice, I could make coriander rice instead, and the tastes would compliment each other nicely. My response, of course, was that I was quite aware of the problem, but I had a hungry blog to feed so he should shut up and eat.

(It’s not really that surprising that I don’t have that many friends. Well, I’m not surprised.)

So when Yousef and Sarah came over, the meal was coriander. Coriander and carrot soup, followed by coriander naan, saag tofu and aloo ghobi. (Aloo ghobi uses coriander, but not a ton. Saag paneer is the same… except, in my recipe, I substituted coriander seeds for mustard seeds. In case someone hadn’t gotten the point.)

Victoria did the aloo ghobi, the saag definitely needed some work, and the naan was nothing spectacular. But the soup – well, look, I’m not going to claim that the soup was perfect. It wasn’t. But unlike the saag – which I’m going to need to cook a few more times before I can figure out what’s going on with it – the soup’s problems were obvious and easily-fixable.

Also, Carrot and Coriander Soup reminds me of the Strong Bad email with Carrot and Kazoo Hill. I don’t know why that is significant, but it is true, and truth is beauty, so at least it’s beautiful.

Carrot and Coriander Soup

1 tablespoon butter or ghee
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and diced
3/4 inch fresh ginger
2 teaspoon coriander seeds
4 cups veggie broth
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Salt to taste

(It makes a lot more sense to measure fresh ginger in inches to me – when I’m cutting a piece off, I have no idea how much whole ginger it will take to make a teaspoon, or whatever.)

In a soup pot, get the fat (butter or ghee) frying and then toss in the onions. Give them a few minutes head start, and toss in the coriander seeds, ginger, cumin, and carrots. Another few minutes, and throw in the veggie broth. Let cook for at least a half an hour. Pour it into a blender, blend it thoroughly, and pour it back into the soup pot. Keep simmering as long as you want; add salt and/or pepper to taste.

Serves 4.


This soup had two major problems, which in all likelihood have the same solution. First, the coriander seeds did not get fully pulverized, and so whole or mostly-whole seeds were turning up in spoonfuls. At the end of Cumin Week, Victoria was feeling sick, and so I whipped up some quick vegetable soup for her. Before I threw anything else in, I toasted some cumin seeds for a bit, and then cooked the soup around them. When it came time to serve, I poured them all in my bowl – correctly assuming that seeds in soup wouldn’t really be her thing. I enjoyed them, though. Still, seeds are not really what people are looking for in soup.

Second, the soup tended to separate kind of like salsa – a spoonful of it would have a watery part and a chunky part. It wasn’t bad at all, but texture-wise it definitely could have been better.

Chances are, both problems can be solved with the same fix – leave it in the blender a bit longer. However, I will admit that I am a bit shaky on the actual mechanics of blending – ie, the extent to which additional blending will combine the pulped carrot and the leftover broth. I mean, it meakes sense that it should work – but I don’t know for sure.

Another thought that I had – which would change the soup significantly, but it’s hard to see a world in which it wouldn’t be for the much better – would be to throw some coconut milk or even heavy cream into the blender along with the rest of the stuff.

Victoria took a crack at the soup few days later. She threw some leftover spicy lentils we had from an Indian restaurant into the blender with the rest, then served the soup with a dollop of yogurt in the middle. (Again, the yogurt is serving as a sour cream substitute, and doing the job quite well.) It was definitely better – I still feel like it wasn’t quite as good as it could have been, though. We’re going to have to try the coconut milk idea some day.

Tomorrow, I roll a twenty.



[1] I had a story I quite like here, about a time when I got to use my powers for good, instead of evil. Problem is, the story made this post huge… and I already have a page of rambling instead of cooking. I’ll keep the Asshole Story around for another day.


[2] Note for people who aren’t nerdly enough nerds to follow my line of thinking – Star Trek: The Next Generation, once it got past its first season, was consistently better than the original series – but it was also much less variable. There were far, far fewer incredibly terrible shows than the original series had, but the cost for that is that there were also fewer incredible shows.

Over time, it certainly did not average out in the original series’ favor – but I am definitely the type of person willing to sit through the more frequent lows, for the rare high point. Thus it is also with cooking.